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The Birth of Yahweh

blü 2

Veteran Member
Premium Member
The earliest deity we know of in history may or may not be The Goddess, as, some say, represented by the Venus of Willendorf.

Otherwise, as far as I can tell, Sumer's Innana (a warlike Venus) is the earliest deity we know of, becoming (or becoming identified with) Babylon's Ishtar. After her come the many gods of Sumer, the many gods of the rest of (Semitic) Mesopotamia, the many gods of Egypt, and the many gods of Mycenae and Minoan culture (proto-Greek).

(I say that without bothering to check what we know about the gods of the Indus valley and of early China. And I may be being enormously disrespectful to the Rainbow Serpent, chief agent, if I understand correctly, in Creation, in the lore of Australian aborigines, whose history only recently got an incredible filip from 40,000 years since they arrived there, to over 60,000 years.)

Not until ~1500 BCE do we come across Proto-Yahweh, in Canaan, where he's one of the members of the Canaanite pantheon and has a consort Ashterah.

500 or so year later, the Tanakh leaves no doubt that he was then only one of the recognized gods available in the region. You already know 'Thou shalt have no other gods before me' (NOT There are no other gods') in the Decalog. And here are some more:

Exodus 15:11 Who is like thee, O Lord, among the gods?

Numbers 33:4 upon their gods also the Lord executed judgments.

Judges 11:23-24 So the the Lord, the God of Israel, dispossessed the Amorites from before his people Israel; and are you to take possession of them? 24 Will you not possess what Chemosh your god gives you to possess?

Psalms 82:1 God has taken his place in the divine council;
in the midst of the gods he holds judgment.

Psalms 86:8 There is none like thee among the gods, O Lord,
nor are there any works like thine.

Psalms 95:3 For the Lord is a great god,
and a great King above all gods.

Psalms 135:5 For I know that the Lord is great;
and that our Lord is above all gods.​

Ashterah or Yahweh or both made a career choice to split, perhaps after 1000 BCE since, say the people who study these matters, there are hints of her in Kings. Yahweh then (say some) became both male and female (not that there's anything wrong with that, of course, though if we're made in his image his sex life is a deep puzzle).

And as everyone knows, Yahweh's career took off, aided in no small part by the Emperor Constantine and the Prophet Mohammed pbuh.

Which brings me to my questions.

Where was Yahweh before he was one of the gods in the Canaanite pantheon circa 1500 BCE?

How can the total silence beforehand, and his visible progress through the bible from the Canaanite pantheon (Smallville) to the Monogod of Everything (Metropolis) be accounted for?
 
Last edited:

Magus

Active Member
The earliest reference to Yahweh, is the Phaistos Disc ( 1850 BCE ) , discovered in Crete.
from 'YAW', that branched into 'Jove' (of the Latins) and Yahwe ( of the Philistines) , introduced too Canaanite vocabulary via the Sea people.
 

blü 2

Veteran Member
Premium Member
The earliest reference to Yahweh, is the Phaistos Disc ( 1850 BCE ) , discovered in Crete.
from 'YAW', that branched into 'Jove' (of the Latins) and Yahwe ( of the Philistines) , introduced too Canaanite vocabulary via the Sea people.
Crete? Something of a surprise.

But thanks. I'll check it out.
 

Jayhawker Soule

-- untitled --
Premium Member
Not until ~1500 BCE do we come across Proto-Yahweh, in Canaan, where he's one of the members of the Canaanite pantheon and has a consort Ashterah.
Oy vey ... this again. :rolleyes:

So, for example, from Wiki's Yahweh: Bronze Age Origins ...

The Israelites originated as Bronze Age Canaanites, but Yahweh does not appear to have been a Canaanite god. The head of the Canaanite pantheon was El, and one theory is that the name Yahweh is a shortened form of el dū yahwī ṣaba’ôt, "El who creates the hosts", meaning the heavenly army accompanying El as he marched beside the earthly armies of Israel. But Yahweh's earliest possible occurrence is as a place-name, "land of Shasu of YHW", in an Egyptian inscription from the time of Amenhotep III (1402–1363 BCE), the Shasu being nomads from Midian and Edom in northern Arabia.​
 

Brickjectivity

Turned to Stone. Now I stretch daily.
Staff member
Premium Member

blü 2

Veteran Member
Premium Member
Oy vey ... this again. :rolleyes:

So, for example, from Wiki's Yahweh: Bronze Age Origins ...

The Israelites originated as Bronze Age Canaanites, but Yahweh does not appear to have been a Canaanite god. The head of the Canaanite pantheon was El, and one theory is that the name Yahweh is a shortened form of el dū yahwī ṣaba’ôt, "El who creates the hosts", meaning the heavenly army accompanying El as he marched beside the earthly armies of Israel. But Yahweh's earliest possible occurrence is as a place-name, "land of Shasu of YHW", in an Egyptian inscription from the time of Amenhotep III (1402–1363 BCE), the Shasu being nomads from Midian and Edom in northern Arabia.​
Crete ... Egypt ... now for Lake Mungo ...

Thanks.
 

Polymath257

Think & Care
Staff member
Premium Member
The earliest reference to Yahweh, is the Phaistos Disc ( 1850 BCE ) , discovered in Crete.
from 'YAW', that branched into 'Jove' (of the Latins) and Yahwe ( of the Philistines) , introduced too Canaanite vocabulary via the Sea people.

It's also interesting to point out that in ancient Latin J was pronounced like our Y, O as a short A, V as a W, and E as a long A. Sound it out: Jove=Yahweh.
 

blü 2

Veteran Member
Premium Member
In the youtube video Gareth Owens says that he has not translated the disc but that he and John Coleman have discovered a systematic way to investigate it and have identified some short phrases based on Linear B script. They currently believe the disc is a Minoan prayer or hymn.
I didn't pick up the YW part, but the talk is a delightful touching of the past.

Thanks.
 

sayak83

Veteran Member
Staff member
Premium Member
The earliest deity we know of in history may or may not be The Goddess, as, some say, represented by the Venus of Willendorf.

Otherwise, as far as I can tell, Sumer's Innana (a warlike Venus) is the earliest deity we know of, becoming (or becoming identified with) Babylon's Ishtar. After her come the many gods of Sumer, the many gods of the rest of (Semitic) Mesopotamia, the many gods of Egypt, and the many gods of Mycenae and Minoan culture (proto-Greek).

(I say that without bothering to check what we know about the gods of the Indus valley and of early China. And I may be being enormously disrespectful to the Rainbow Serpent, chief agent, if I understand correctly, in Creation, in the lore of Australian aborigines, whose history only recently got an incredible filip from 40,000 years since they arrived there, to over 60,000 years.)

Not until ~1500 BCE do we come across Proto-Yahweh, in Canaan, where he's one of the members of the Canaanite pantheon and has a consort Ashterah.

500 or so year later, the Tanakh leaves no doubt that he was then only one of the recognized gods available in the region. You already know 'Thou shalt have no other gods before me' (NOT There are no other gods') in the Decalog. And here are some more:

Exodus 15:11 Who is like thee, O Lord, among the gods?

Numbers 33:4 upon their gods also the Lord executed judgments.

Judges 11:23-24 So the the Lord, the God of Israel, dispossessed the Amorites from before his people Israel; and are you to take possession of them? 24 Will you not possess what Chemosh your god gives you to possess?

Psalms 82:1 God has taken his place in the divine council;
in the midst of the gods he holds judgment.

Psalms 86:8 There is none like thee among the gods, O Lord,
nor are there any works like thine.

Psalms 95:3 For the Lord is a great god,
and a great King above all gods.

Psalms 135:5 For I know that the Lord is great;
and that our Lord is above all gods.​

Ashterah or Yahweh or both made a career choice to split, perhaps after 1000 BCE since, say the people who study these matters, there are hints of her in Kings. Yahweh then (say some) became both male and female (not that there's anything wrong with that, of course, though if we're made in his image his sex life is a deep puzzle).

And as everyone knows, Yahweh's career took off, aided in no small part by the Emperor Constantine and the Prophet Mohammed pbuh.

Which brings me to my questions.

Where was Yahweh before he was one of the gods in the Canaanite pantheon circa 1500 BCE?

How can the total silence beforehand, and his visible progress through the bible from the Canaanite pantheon (Smallville) to the Monogod of Everything (Metropolis) be accounted for?

To your question, the answer is globalization. One may as well ask why among all languages, have descendents of Latin (English, Spanish, French, Portuguese) have become the first or second language of most of the world.
 

Magus

Active Member
In the ancient world, Zeus, Jove and Yhwh are the same God, only dialects differentiate them , that is why the Temple of Zeus and the Temple of Jupiter, both occupied the Temple Mount, in Jerusalem, In the Roman world, a Lamb was sacrificed to Jove on the Ides of March, 'Ides' (Full Moon) is a remnant of the Roman lunar calendar before Julian, which means Romans & Jews sacrificed the Lamb to Jove-Jahve on the same day.

Phoenicians called themselves Canaanites, the Old Testament lies about the identity of the Canaanites, There was never an ethnically distinct “Canaanite” population that the “Israelites” displaced.
 

blü 2

Veteran Member
Premium Member
To your question, the answer is globalization. One may as well ask why among all languages, have descendents of Latin (English, Spanish, French, Portuguese) have become the first or second language of most of the world.
It's the Before that's interesting. The After is pretty well documented.

But thanks.
 

sayak83

Veteran Member
Staff member
Premium Member
It's the Before that's interesting. The After is pretty well documented.

But thanks.
But the before is pretty rhetorical for you is it not? You more or less believe that all God's are cultural constructs the expand and contract their influence with the rise and fall of cultures that created them?
 

A Vestigial Mote

Well-Known Member
But the before is pretty rhetorical for you is it not? You more or less believe that all God's are cultural constructs the expand and contract their influence with the rise and fall of cultures that created them?
The "before" is the compilation of evidence that various gods have worked in exactly the manner you have described. That is that "[gods] are cultural constructs [that] expand and contract their influence with the rise and fall of cultures that created them." Without the "before", it would be tough to present correlation of the idea to reality in the "after". If people are good at anything, it is shooting themselves in the foot - you want to call pointing that out "rhetoric", fine. Doesn't mean that their collective "foot" should feel any less sore.
 

blü 2

Veteran Member
Premium Member
But the before is pretty rhetorical for you is it not? You more or less believe that all God's are cultural constructs the expand and contract their influence with the rise and fall of cultures that created them?
I also take pleasure in ancient history, and I don't think Yahweh deserves less attention than Ninsun Wild Cow or Dionusos.
 

Brickjectivity

Turned to Stone. Now I stretch daily.
Staff member
Premium Member
I didn't pick up the YW part, but the talk is a delightful touching of the past.

Thanks.
Me, neither; and I watched the video.
Oy vey ... this again. :rolleyes:

So, for example, from Wiki's Yahweh: Bronze Age Origins ...

The Israelites originated as Bronze Age Canaanites, but Yahweh does not appear to have been a Canaanite god. The head of the Canaanite pantheon was El, and one theory is that the name Yahweh is a shortened form of el dū yahwī ṣaba’ôt, "El who creates the hosts", meaning the heavenly army accompanying El as he marched beside the earthly armies of Israel. But Yahweh's earliest possible occurrence is as a place-name, "land of Shasu of YHW", in an Egyptian inscription from the time of Amenhotep III (1402–1363 BCE), the Shasu being nomads from Midian and Edom in northern Arabia.​
We're regretfully torturing information out of you. I'm sorry if its unpleasant, but you can stop it if you will just tell us the secret location of the ark. It belongs in a museum.
 

sayak83

Veteran Member
Staff member
Premium Member
The "before" is the compilation of evidence that various gods have worked in exactly the manner you have described. That is that "[gods] are cultural constructs [that] expand and contract their influence with the rise and fall of cultures that created them." Without the "before", it would be tough to present correlation of the idea to reality in the "after". If people are good at anything, it is shooting themselves in the foot - you want to call pointing that out "rhetoric", fine. Doesn't mean that their collective "foot" should feel any less sore.
I was more interested in addressing the question whether the current dominance of Abrahamic Monotheism is tied to some inherent superiority of its theological formulation or not. My position is "not".
Are God's cultural constructs? Undoubtedly. Are they then mere fictions? I don't believe so. An analogy can be made with the concept of "self". It is often expressed as a singular entity, the actor in an autobiographical narrative that flows seamlessly from birth to death. But its not that all, and is a highly constructed entity for each of us. Yet very little can be more subjectively real than this "I" or as objectively important as the foundations of individuality, rights etc.

Also just because Gods are built up through culture does not necessarily imply that there is no phenomenology al and experiential foundation beneath it.
 

sayak83

Veteran Member
Staff member
Premium Member
I also take pleasure in ancient history, and I don't think Yahweh deserves less attention than Ninsun Wild Cow or Dionusos.
Surely Yhwh not getting enough attention is not the problem of our times?
 

A Vestigial Mote

Well-Known Member
I was more interested in addressing the question whether the current dominance of Abrahamic Monotheism is tied to some inherent superiority of its theological formulation or not. My position is "not".
Are God's cultural constructs? Undoubtedly. Are they then mere fictions? I don't believe so. An analogy can be made with the concept of "self". It is often expressed as a singular entity, the actor in an autobiographical narrative that flows seamlessly from birth to death. But its not that all, and is a highly constructed entity for each of us. Yet very little can be more subjectively real than this "I" or as objectively important as the foundations of individuality, rights etc.

Also just because Gods are built up through culture does not necessarily imply that there is no phenomenology al and experiential foundation beneath it.
I understand what you are saying, but at the same time I feel the need to clarify somewat. What you are saying is that gods are not "fiction" in the same way "zeitgeist" is not fiction. Zeitgeist is a representation of the essence or spirit of "the times" - so it is something... an amorphous something, but something nonetheless. And it arises in this same accretion of ideas and personal-to-cultural attributions you are describing in the "building" of gods/religion. But it is still easily understood that the "Zeitgeist" of the 1980's is not the 1980's, nor does it hold sway or rulership over the 1980's. In fact it only exists as long as there is a mind to remember it or pass on its memory. There will forever remain nothing tangible or essential to that "spirit."
 

There are a few points I would like to make.

First off, there is no possible way to pronounce or write the word “yahweh” in the Hebrew language.

Secondly, there is absolutely no such thing as a silent Héy in the middle of any Hebrew word, it is a violation of the rules of Hebrew Grammar. If the letter Héy appears at the beginning or in the middle of any word, it must be pronounced with a hard “H” phoneme. Any vowel + Héy monophthong must occur at the end of a word – ah, eh, ih, and oh can only appear at the end of a word. There is no possible way that the sound “yah” can occur at the beginning or in the middle of any Hebrew word.

Thirdly, there is no character or phoneme in the Hebrew language that corresponds with the English character and phoneme “W.” So just throw that hogwash right out the window. I began learning English while still living in Israel. My family moved to the United States just before I turned 13, and it took me over 5 years before I could accurately pronounce the English “W” phoneme, and I worked on it really, really hard. “Vaht are you doing, vere are you going, and ven vill you be back?” In that respect native Hebrew speaking people are not very dissimilar from native German speaking people.

In fact the very word “yahweh” was coined by a German fellow by the name of Heinrich Friedrich Wilhelm (pronounced veel-helm) Gesenius in the 1820’s. It was originally spelt Jähweh in German, and pronounced similar to yuh-veh.

However, that is not even close to the actual pronunciation, which is nobody’s business anyway.

My next point is: even though your personal translations may say “no other gods,” the actual translation of the words – אֱלֹהִים אֲחֵרִיםʾĕlohiym ʾăḥériym is “gods of others.” It does not mean that there are any other gods, it refers to whatever the people of other nations worship as gods. What the verse actually says is: “it is not for you to put the gods of others in my face.” Which simply means do not challenge God with anything that other people claim their gods do or have done.


Next point: Exodus 15: 11 actually says – מִי־כָמֹכָה בָּאֵלִםmiy-ḵamoḵah baʾélim, which is “who is like you among the mighty ones?” In the original pictograph script of the Hebrew language the Alef was an ox head and the Lamed was an ox goad. Therefore when you put the ox goad next to the ox, it symbolizes power over the ox, or stronger than an ox: ergo powerful, mighty etc.


I could go on, but what’s the point? You’re basing your entire discussion upon very faulty translations and nonexistent words.

 
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