Used by permission of the illustrator © Stéphane Beaulieu.
Is Ashtoreth “Mrs. Yahweh”?
By
Tom Roberts, PhD
For centuries, the people of God had fought an uphill battle attempting to defend the one God concept. Monotheism is defined as the belief in one deity. Amenhotep of Egypt believed the Great Monad was the sun god Ra. The mountain god El, in Hebrew traditions, was known as Elohim. Until our time, much of the Middle Eastern understanding was unavailable to us to evaluate some of the statements contained in Scripture about these other gods besides Yahweh that supposedly existed in other nations, Ashtoreth (1 Kings 11:33); Dagon (Judges 16:23-24; 1 Samuel 5:7); Chemosh (Judges 11:24; 1 Kings 11:33); Milchom (1 Kings 11:33); and Nisroch (2 Kings 19:37). Isaiah shows that there is no consort beside this God contrary to pagan documents from Elephantine, which asserted the existence of a “Mrs. Yahweh,” violating the First Commandment (Deuteronomy 5:7; Exodus 20:3). The Hebraic equivalent of the Elephantine concept is Sophia, or Lady Wisdom, who was to convey God’s wisdom to the prophets via the Holy Spirit, Racah Kadesh, who was also feminine in Hebraic terms.
The Hebrew prophets were in total agreement that one should worship Yahweh alone. There was never any deviation upheld for any other practice. Today, scholars have advanced the position that Monotheism was a post exilic development after the demise of polytheism which existed in Israel’s history. The problem with this concept is Monotheism existed in Egypt during Amenhotep’s reign and later, the mountain god El was worshipped as a Semitic deity.
The Ugaritic text entitled “KRT” does show a supreme being who was always male and the lower classification of gods and goddesses employed divine agency for the one god. Cyrus Gordon, one of the greatest Semitic scholars of our time, in his Ugaritic textbook grammar states the Semitic goddesses were always in subjection to male deities through divine agency. He also denies there was “Golden Age” for the female goddess at the dawn of civilization as most feminist theologians claim. Even the classic work entitled Dictionary of Deities and Demons in the Bible states on p. 104 that the notion that Yahweh has Baal characteristics and is married to Ashtoreth is no where supported in the KTU as modern scholars claim. Yahweh would have had to become Baal for this “wedding” to take place. This is why Isaiah 43:10 states He had no consort and the worship of Baal was expressly forbidden.
Ashtoreth certainly was in the Mighty Counsel and there’s no reason to believe that her former position was every edited out of the Hebrew bible. There is no textual evidence which shows that an earlier Hebrew manuscript suggested she was “Mrs. Yahweh or God’s consort. Although “Mrs. Yahweh” is certainly in the Elephantine documents, this does not demonstrate that she was Ashtoreth married to Yahweh in the Hebrew bible.
Today books such as The Twilight of the Gods suggest that a “Golden Era” of polytheism existed in early Hebrew history. It is no surprise to modern scholars that a great struggle between the two schools of thought was truly a part of Israel’s religious history. In Wisdom Traditions, Sophia was worshipped in the early church as part of the divine feminine. (See the Odes of Solomon and The Holy Spirit in Eastern Church Traditions by Stanley Burgess) Wisdom is worshipped in Orthodox traditions as the feminine counterpart to the Holy Spirit who exists within the nature of God. Could this “dance with Sophia” be the divine feminine who is sought by those looking to complete their worship experience?
Dr. Tom Roberts
Tom Roberts holds a bachelor’s degree in theology from Triune Biblical University, a M.Th. from Covenant Bible College and Seminary, Federal Way, Washington as well as an M. Div. and Ph.D. in Theology from the Hellenic Orthodox University in Athens, Greece. He believes that his mission is to make biblical knowledge more widely known among the general public. Formerly, Tom has been a professional singer, a lay pastor and a D.J. He is currently an ordained Priest for Christ’s Catholic Church and Academic Dean of St Elias Seminary and Graduate School. Tom resides with his wife and son in Weiser, Idaho.
All posts by Dr. Tom Roberts
Ashteroth isn’t even the same deity as Ashera. Ashteroth is Astarte, I believe.
Astarte was Ba’al’s consort and Ashera was El’s. Ashera+El and Astarte+Ba’al. I’m not sure Yahweh had a consort. Possibly did but i’ve read conflicting info as sometimes Ashera is said to be consort of El and sometimes of Yahweh it has never been really clear to me which. But I lean toward Ashera being consort of El not Yahweh who are also two different deities just as Ashera and Astarte are two different deities. So my answer is NO Ashteroth was NOT consort of Yahweh, she was consort of Ba’al who was a rival deity to Yahweh. See Elijah story and the “my god is better than your god contest”. 😛
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canaanite_pantheon#Pantheon
Another consideration in regards to Asherah is used in two different connotations. Asera seems to be as a cultic object such as Asherah Poles. The other sense of her name is used for the divine counsel. There was in ancient times a cycle of myths which used local gods and goddesses in different local contexts. For example, you have Baal and Anat before the great El in KTU 14. After Baal kills large numbers of her children, it appears she may have been the consort of El but is not expressly stated in the Keret Story. So not all scholars hold the idea that El was ever married to Asherah.
The biblical Ashtoreth should not be confused with the goddess Asherah, the form of the names being quite distinct, and both appearing quite distinctly in the Book of 1st Kings. (In Biblical Hebrew, as in other older Semitic languages, Asherah begins with an aleph or glottal stop consonant א, while ʻAshtoreth begins with an ʻayin or voiced pharyngeal consonant ע, indicating the lack of any plausible etymological connection between the two names.) The biblical writers may, however, have conflated some attributes and titles of the two, as seems to have occurred throughout the 1st millennium Levant.[7] For instance, the title “Queen of heaven” as mentioned in Jeremiah has been connected with both. (In later Jewish mythology, she became a female demon of lust; for what seems to be the use of the Hebrew plural form ʻAštārōṯ in this sense, see Astaroth).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Astarte
Asherah and Astarte are not the same god. See the Dictionary of Deities and Demons for clarification. The article argues the position that Yahweh had no consort.
Thanks for your comments.
Father Tom
Ashera is an Asura like Ashtoreth.
Asura’ s have been around for a long time, and they’re know for different things, according to the population they’re in…
Enemies in India, allies in Persia, male and female, like the male/female God who created us in his image, male and female…
Asherah and Ashtoreth are the same name in different places.
Asherah (/əˈʃɪərə/; Hebrew: אֲשֵׁרָה ʾăšērā; Ugaritic: ‘Aṯirat; Hittite: a-še-ir-tu4;[2] Akkadian: a-ši-RAT;[3] Qatabanian: ʾṮRT),[4] in ancient Semitic religion, is a mother goddess who appears in a number of ancient sources. She appears in Akkadian writings by the name of Ašratu(m), and in Hittite writings as Aserdu(s) or Asertu(s). Asherah is generally considered identical with the Ugaritic goddess ʾAṯiratu.
Asherah
אֲשֵׁרָה
Goddess of motherhood and fertility
Lady of the Sea
I’m inclined to agree with Ryan on this one. I don’t have expertise in this field, or a dog in this fight (and doubt it really is a “fight” to begin with, really), but Ryan’s advice to combine a critical reading of the texts with archaeological evidences to construct likely features of the history and religious practices of early Israelites is key.
On a completely separate note, I think it would be awesome to name my daughter Asherah. Beautiful name.
Thanks Tom for your discussion of this topic. You cover a lot of ground in this brief post, much of which diverges from my recent presentation of the evidence for goddess worship in ancient Israel, so I thought I would briefly comment on a number of your statements.
1) Why do you focus on the Astarte as the possible consort to Yahweh? I’m not familiar with that suggestion, as most scholars believe that Yahweh’s spouse was Asherah . As you would probably already know, Astarte is always spoken of as a Phoenician deity in the biblical text (for example, 1 Kgs 11:5).
2) “For centuries, the people of God had fought an uphill battle attempting to defend the one God concept.” This statement seems to restate the biblical authors’ own views as described in the books of Deut-Kings, where Israel is shown to constantly vacillate between serving Yahweh and other gods, implying that the biblical narrative should be taken at face value as a historical account. But there are problems with this approach, in that it is often very difficult trying to determine whether the biblical authors were trying to describe the past as it actually had been rather than a past that conformed to the religious beliefs they held to at the time they were writing.
Two forms of historical inquiry have assisted scholars in trying to understand what the biblical texts meant in their original historical context. The first is a literary analysis of the texts themselves, by which we try and assess the who, when, where, and why of the texts. Who wrote them, under what circumstances, and why? The other is an investigation into the archaeological and historical context of the biblical texts, which entails using artifactual, iconographical, and comparative evidence to situate the historical and cultural background of the texts.
Used together, these forms of inquiry can provide unique and significant nsight into the statements and narrative descriptions found in the Bible. In my view, they suggest that the biblical narrative found in Deut-Kings should not be taken at face value as a transparent description of historical reality. Literary-critical analysis along with an investigation of the archaeological context indicates that this story was written long after the events it narrates. There was no one “people of God/Yahweh” who on their good days worshiped only El/Yahweh during the monarchic period. Rather, this presentation of Israelite religion is an ideologically-driven interpretation by the biblical authors who constructed their narrative in order to legitimate their own religious views.
3) “Isaiah shows that there is no consort beside this God contrary to pagan documents from Elephantine, which asserted the existence of a “Mrs. Yahweh,” violating the First Commandment (Deuteronomy 5:7; Exodus 20:3).”
First of all, there is a problem with asserting that Isaiah shows us anything about the historical realities of the original time period in which Isaiah lived. The book is highly complicated from a redactional/editorial point of view and exhibits a number of intertwined literary layers corresponding to different periods of Israelite/Jewish history. The fact that the book of Isaiah was preserved and maintained by the monotheizing scribes of the Second Temple period argues against the assumption that the words of the original prophet would have been kept pristine and so should be taken as a window into pre-exilic Israelite religious belief.
Second, even acknowledging these complex aspects of the text, it is not the case that Isaiah shows that there was no consort beside Yahweh/God in the monarchic period. I have shown in my previous post that there is sufficient grounds for assuming that the authors of Isaiah believed that God had a wife, and if I had time, I could show that there is actually much more evidence in the Hebrew.
Third, you mention the First Commandment as a historical datum that suggests ancient Israel had long been monotheistic. But this begs the question of when the first commandment was written or whether it may have been redacted/updated at a later time. Scholars have suggested a wide variety of historical contexts for the writing/redaction of the first commandment, some stretching into the exilic and post-exilic periods. Furthermore, if the text can be dated to the monarchic period, how do we know whether the views it purports to legislate were actually considered normative or were practiced by a sizable number of people? How do we know it was not an idealized scribal construction? Finally, if the term pane “Face” may have been an epithet for goddesses elsewhere in Palestine, it is possible that the First commandment’s reference to God’s Face may have originally been a reference to God’s wife (“you shall have no other gods before my Face”).
4) “The Hebrew prophets were in total agreement that one should worship Yahweh alone. There was never any deviation upheld for any other practice.”
This is not actually the case. When these texts are examined closely, we find considerable variation in their attitudes to deities other than Yahweh. Saul Olyan, for example, has noted that the goddess Asherah is not an object of polemic in the writings of Hosea and Isaiah, which contrasts strongly with the militant Yahweh alone ideology of the Deuteronomistic literature, and plausibly argued that these prophets originally held the goddess to be an orthodox element of Israelite religious practice. Furthermore, in all of these texts, the polemic against the worship of “other gods” is almost always found in the latest strata of the texts, that is, in editorial additions and insertions, not in the words of the original prophets.
5) “Today, scholars have advanced the position that Monotheism was a post exilic development after the demise of polytheism which existed in Israel’s history. The problem with this concept is Monotheism existed in Egypt during Amenhotep’s reign and later, the mountain god El was worshipped as a Semitic deity.”
It is true that Akhenaten abandoned traditional polytheism and established a form of monotheistic worship during the 14th century, but this hardly constitutes evidence for widespread monotheistic belief. His cult reform was short-lived even in Egypt itself. It is better to see polytheism as having been endemic to the broader ancient Near East while acknowledging it to have had certain conceptually unifying and integrative qualities (as does Mark Smith, The Origins of Monotheism)
6) “The Ugaritic text entitled “KRT” does show a supreme being who was always male and the lower classification of gods and goddesses employed divine agency for the one god. Cyrus Gordon, one of the greatest Semitic scholars of our time, in his Ugaritic textbook grammar states the Semitic goddesses were always in subjection to male deities through divine agency. He also denies there was “Golden Age” for the female goddess at the dawn of civilization as most feminist theologians claim. Even the classic work entitled Dictionary of Deities and Demons in the Bible states on p. 104 that the notion that Yahweh has Baal characteristics and is married to Ashtoreth is no where supported in the KTU as modern scholars claim.”
This statement is incorrect in a number of respects. First, the story “Kirta” shows El to have been married to Asherah and the latter is portrayed as independently powerful. Even though El has blessed Kirta with progeny, Kirta’s failure to remember to fulfill his vow to the goddess results in his being afflicted with sickness.
Second, while it is true that female deities were generally subordinate to male deities in ancient Near Eastern pantheons, this was simply a reflection of the patriarchal norms that were prevalent in these cultures translated to the supernatural realm. The supremacy of male deities like El can in no way be regarded as an incipient form of monotheism. There is abundant evidence from the Ugaritic texts and elsewhere that female deities had substantial powers and maintained their individuality within the patriarchal contexts in which they operated and were worshiped. For example, when El looks for a replacement for Baal in the Baal Cycle after the latter had died at the hands of Mot, he turns to Asherah. She clearly has pride of place in nominating the royal heir.
Interpreting the Ugaritic pantheon as focused on only one god seriously distorts the historical reality. Female deities played important roles and this is reflected in a range of ritual and mythological texts. One passage in the Baal Cycle even suggests that for a deity to be seen as a serious power within the pantheon he would need to be married. Athtar is disqualified from taking on the role of royal executive under El because he has “no wife like the gods” (CAT 1.2).
Third, no credible scholar that I know of is claiming a golden age when goddesses where preeminent and that this can be reconstructed for Israelite history.
Fourth, not very many scholars have suggested that Yahweh was married to Astarte, so this argument is a red herring. Rather, scholars believe that Yahweh was married to Asherah or his asherah, as indicated by the inscriptions from Kuntillet Ajrud and Khirbet el Qom and from a close reading of the biblical texts.
Thanks again, Tom! I hope we can continue conversing about how to interpret the biblical and archaeological data.
Sorry for the confusion about Asherah and Ashtoreth. The only point was that these deities were sometimes seen as a part of the Mighty Council and our readers have run away with the concept. Second, I’m a true Monotheist and do not believe this concept arose in the post-exilic period. This is based on the research of Bernhard Lang in Monotheism and the Prophetic Minority which claims on the Arabian peninsula there was a Yahweh Only cult in which the prophets developed their monotheistic theme up to the time of Minor Prophets. By circa 700 BC, the following sentence emerged as a refrain of a national song which said Yahweh is the God of all the country, the hills of Judah belong to the God of Jerusalem. The close correlation between small letter “g” god, land and other people implies other countries, other gods and to go abroad means to serve other gods. See 1 Sam 26:19-20 and Ps 137:4 where the question is asked, “How could we sing Yahweh’s song in a foreign land?” There is no question that other deities were worshipped throughout Israelite history within the territories of Israel and Judah. Arabic scholars believe the Hebrew prophets had the right historical setting but became corrupted with their own Hebraic influence. See the term “teheed”. There is no doubt Canaanite myth and Hebrew epic co-existed but never with the prophet’s blessing. See Frank Moore Cross. The book Twilight of the Gods-Polytheism in the Hebrew Bible by David Penchansky is making quite a stir in the evangelical scholarly realm. Never was it my intention to say his view was the theology of most scholars. I was merely stating Asherah has received in modern times quite a boost in popularity but these beliefs about her and her marriage to Yahweh are still held only by a minority of scholars. The real argument, in my professional opinion, seems to be over how do we interpret the Ba al cycle with Asherah along side a Hebrew Bible that prohibits the worship of this deity in spite of the fact Pritchard and Albright and other archaeologists have shown how popular this practice once was.
Dear Friends and Colleagues,
Thank you for your thoughtful expressions of faith based on your training and interpretations. My desire is for fruitful dialogue to be coupled with mutual respect with all hearts being open to gentle correction and persuasion as we, together, pursue the truth of these important matters.
There has been some misunderstanding about two points which were made early in this dialogue.
First, no such statement was made of a Golden Age where the goddess reigned supreme being held by a majority of scholars. I mentioned just the opposite of this assertion. Ryan Thomas twisted my statement.
Second, the use of Ashtoreth in its proper context is a classification of deities which is understood to be in accordance with Judges 2:13 where the goddesses are called Ashtoreth “Astarot”. See 1 Kings 15:13 and 2 Chron 15:16. It state that “Maacah made an obscene thing for Asherah” -Mipleset La Aserah – and that Asa cut it the obscene thing, not the Asherah, down. The KGS text employs the article and the CHR text omits it. The principle of the divine names is noted above and there is no shift in the understanding between the two versions.
In all of the Semitic references, El reigned supreme and employed eternal and complete likenesses within himself. In the 1958 facsimile which has remained undeciphered it read ‘Id’Im. ‘il du ‘olami El, Lord of Eternity. This stand behind the biblical El Olam, Lord of Eternity. When we study the epithets, the character of the god El is revealed. He is Father and Creator and is occasionally known as ‘abu bani’ili Father of the gods. Ptah’s epithets along with the Lachish leeters of Amenophis II contain similar data along with the Canaanite El and his outrage. The substitution of Yahweh for El in first position would be natural when Yahweh became the principle cult name for the god of war Yahweh (yahwe-zu yahwe) saba’ot.
By the time of Isaiah and Sennacharib inscriptions, the prophets had followed the monotheism of the Arabian peninsula as suggested by Lang and Heshel. To assert Yahweh had a consort one must juxtapose the Elephantine readings with the Isaiah text which is a violation of good scholarly practice because they come from two separate traditions unless one is going to create an international blend of cultures as Cyrus Gordon suggests. This tends to be the methodology used by those who uphold the Asherah construct because it cannot be deduced from the biblical text. There was a certain amount of redaction possibly completed by Ezra and his scribes especially in Kings and Chronicles where they state the situation is true to this day and “all the other deeds of” are they not written in the Books of the Deed of the —– King of Israel. Notice we have textual evidence for this editing. See Dr. Gordon Fry’s work from the University of Toronto. We do not have textual evidence for the total reconstruction of Isaiah and other books as redaction critics suggest. Just read the Isaiah Scroll. And to state the additions were always added at the end of Hebrew poetry is preposterous because the editors juxtaposed poetry and timelines to bring about a new theological situation to create the new epic.
Acumen suggests the disappearance of Asherah is due tot he rise in the Shekinah glory in representing God’s feminine wisdom, “the lady of the dance” Prov 8:24-36. This theme is picked up in the early church in the Odes of Solomon. See Stanley Burgess work on the Holy Spirit in the Eastern Churches and one can worship the divine feminine nature of deity without reconstructing Old Testament texts to simply fit one’s scenario from an ancient cultural mileau.
Submitted with Love and Respect and Sincerely in Christ’s Name,
Professor Father Tom
Aloha Professor Tom, as you’re still checking my other posts before putting them here, I don’t mind if you delete them.
I’d like to participate in your studies, and I’m not in a rush; but I’m willing to discuss anything I wrote if you’re interested.
I’m a Christian who noticed Acts 15:14-15 God did at the first visit the Gentiles, to take out of them a people for his name. And to this agree the words of the prophets.
That sent me on a 10 year journey studying Gentiles in The Bible.
Along the way, I noticed that Galatians tells us, “The scripture preached the gospel unto Abraham,” 430 years before Moses wrote the law.
And we have an “Everlasting gospel.”
I’ve been searching for the everlasting gospel and the scripture that preached the gospel unto Abraham for 5 or 6 years.
I looked for the standard of righteous, the definitions of sin, the sacrifice for sins…
I found Yah everywhere!
I found out that Jesus fulfilled prophecies in every religion, not just among the Jews.
I found Jesus quoting The Emerald Tablets. I found Jesus only wore unsewn garments, in accordance with ancient Vedic traditions. I found Paul quoting Socrates and Aratus’ poem about Zeus…
I found sources of Christian doctrine that the Jews never heard of, because Jesus has sheep in other pastures.
Baptism, Born Again, both of those confused the scribes and pharisees: Godhead, another concept that isn’t in the Tanach: the basics, come from Vedic literature.
Along the way I met a Rabbi and I told him that I keep hearing God’s names in ancient texts from other nations. He said it is the still small voice of God and recommended that I buy a Torah. He taught me how to read Hebrew like hieroglyphs.
Anu in Sumeria is Ani in Hebrew, Ahu on Easter Island, Aku on New Zealand, Atua in Tahiti, and Akua in Hawaii.
YHWH backwards is HWHY, which can be interpreted as Palace of Yah, and pronounced as Hawaii.
In short, I see how just about everything fits together without a seam, like the robe Jesus wore, like the definition of “Religion” rejoining all the pieces of the puzzle, and how all the fullness of the godhead dwelleth bodily in Jesus.
I would appreciate being able to fellowship here.
Mahalo nui loa,
Aloysious
We are in the last of the last days. Look around you. Daniel 12:4 knowledge shall increase. There are some hard truths to learn. Very difficult truths because of relationships, but we are talking eternity here. I’m just going to put it out there, chips fall where they may. The Jews we have learned are satan worshippers. The Jews usurped the identity of Jacob/Israel [the man] from white America. White Americans are Israelites. There go the negroes reading this saying we are Israelites. Wrong. Only Adamic Caucasian Hebrew Israelite Greeks are Israelites. How? That one word. Adamic. Negroes are pre-Adamic man. The devil Gadre`El took possession of an evil but willing Chay, “beast of the field” and he became Nachash the glowing one. He beguiled Eve and they produced the first hybrid abomination in Cain. (here we go) And Enoch also beheld the residue of the people which were the sons of Adam [the man]; and they were a mixture of all the seed of Adam [the man] save (except) it was the seed of Cain, for the seed line of Cain were the negroes, and had no place among [white men]. Here we learn for sure now the physical and literal children of the devil are the negroes. They can no longer dodge it, or call whites liars. Mix them with the descendants of Esau and you get the synagogue of Satan. The Khazars are 50% negroid. Yahwey is the god of the Jews. The Jews worship satan. What does that tell you. first it tells you that YAHWEY is a mesopotamian negro god. He’s a negro. Yahuah, Yah, Yeshua, Yahshua, Yahushua, Yahawa Yahawashi are all negro pagan names. YHVH/YHWH is not the Creator God. Yeshua is not the Christ. Finally it tells you that Jesus Christ was not a Jew. Jesus was/is a new[Adamic Caucasian Hebrew Israelite Greek God-man]. Proofs. Moses 7:22, Abraham 1:21-24, Book of Enoch 68:6 page 64, Genesis chapters 1-4. Colossians 2:9 For Jesus is the fullness of The Godhead! JESUS THE FATHER, Jesus The Son/Christ, Jesus The Holy Spirit. Tell your friends, family, loved ones, everybody who the enemy is, and that only JESUS IS THE LORD.
Adam Man, according to anthropologists, Neanderthals were in Europe for about 400,000 years before Homosapiens migrated out of Africa.
Neanderthals had red hair, freckles, and blushed. They also had larger brains than we do.
Aboriginies in Australia have a legend about a time “When there were no Blackfellows.”
The first king of Samoa was white with red hair, and his name was Batuku Long Skull.
Notice the red hair and bigger brains in the older white populations?
White people inhabited this planet before dark skinned Homosapiens left Africa.
Adam has been interpreted as, To show the blood in the face. Adam and Edom have the same root.
The white people who inhabited this globe once upon a time could build things with rocks that we can hardly move in the 21st century.
They were a master race before any Black African Homosapiens existed, and you’re wrong.
The white people with larger brains were having sex with anything that had a hole or a pole, which all of the interspecies and interracial breeding in The Bible bears witness to; and that’s why we have tiny little Homosapien brains, even if you’re as white as I am.
Your “Greek hybrid god/bull/snake/goat forking, mixed race God man” is a mutt.
There’s no such thing as a master race anymore, we are all mixed race mullatos with tiny Homosapien skulls and even tinier brains that fit in them; our skulls prove that we all have negro dna, and you’re not better than anybody else.
Godfrey Higgins wrote Anacalypsis, An Inquiry Into The Origins Of Numbers, Letters, Languages, and Religions. He also wrote the Celtic Druids.
In those books he says, After the flood God confounded our language at the Tower of Babel, and divided our tounges…
He said, We originally had a few proto-languages.
He goes on to say, At that time the Sanskrit, Greek, Latin, Arabic, Hebrew, Persian, and Celtic alphabets only had 16 letters that could be read by learned people, usually priesthoods from any of those languages.
He gives examples of Celts in Britain sending messages to Delphi with leaves on strings that represented letters in sentences.
He also gave examples of words from those languages that we can still recognize in English.
He blames the scribes and priests from all those nations for adding more letters to their alphabets in order to hide similarities between other languages.
This leads to wars between people who are talking about the same God, but cannot read between the lines to see the similarities.
Godfrey Higgins gives the names of three other linguists who claim that all of our words come from names for the sun, who’s books we can combine with his, and use them to decipher all of those languages…
A proper etymolgy should go back to the sun.
Hebrew didn’t originally have vowels. You were supposed to consider every possible pronunciation and meaning for a word.
Same with Sanskrit and Arabic, proto-languages with Hebrew.
So a proper etymolgy should be looking for similarities more than differences.
Rabbis teach that, G-d gave the Torah to every nation, but only the Jews kept it.
So nobody should be surprised to find parts of the Torah in the Puranas.
Nobody should be surprised to read in, The Legends and Myths of Hawaii, that Hawaiians were Israel or they had contact with Israel.
Nobody should be surprised to find YAH’s name spelled with different letters in different languages.
Like Yah in Aryan, could be translated as Mountain of Yah in Hebrew or Son of Yah in some Sythian languages, ArYAHn.
We can see Yah spelled with IA in Scythian, ScythYAHn. It’s the same in Hawaiian, HawaiYAHn.
The Sumerian has Yah in the name, and they recognized a trinity constellation that had a star named EA, SumerYAHn.
EA is another way of spelling YAH.
The other two stars they called Anu and Enlil. Anu is Ani in Hebrew and Enlil is Elohim.
The Greeks worshipped Janu, JAHnu.
India was named after YAH, IndYAH.
Egyptians are EgyptYAHns.
Persians are PersYAHns.
The sun is called Surya in Vedic literature, SurYAH
The illusion of life is Maya, MaYAH
Death is the anagram for Maya, Yama, YAHma.
Danarjana: another name for Krishna, DanarJAHna.
Danjaya: another name for Arjuna, DanJAHYAH.
Yagna, an offering to God, YAHgna.
Assyrian, AssyrYAHn.
Zoarastrian, ZorastrYAHn.
From A to Z, Yah is God all over the earth.
Christ is all and in all. All things to all men. That’s who Yah is too.
Some people recognized Yah as female, some as male, some as the sun, some as the moon…
Yah is in all of those things and all those things exist by YAH’s grace, but those things are not Yah.
Yah has always been worshipped without an image, but not by everyone.
Worshipping the only God who ever existed isn’t idolatry.
Making an image of the only God who ever existed is idolatry.
That’s the difference between Yah and an image of Yah.
After reading this thread, I traced the Assyrians to Mahabharata and the Torah.
The Mahabharata describes the earth before the flood and gives the locations of cities that have been underwater since the flood. Underwater archeologists are just discovering cities that they thought were mythological for thousands of years.
The Mahabharata says the Asuras came before the gods, and they’re Assyrians.
Surya is the name of the sun in Vedic literature. Wiki says the name Assyrian comes from these names…
Sūrāyē/Suryoye/ʾĀṯōrāyē
See Asura, Surya, and Torah in those names?
Shem named Assur after he got off of the ark, but before the Tower of Babel… when Sanskrit and Hebrew were the same language.
The Yod at the end of Surya/ Assyria means he’s YAH’S Assur in Hebrew, and the sun is YAH’s Sun, like it means YAH’s Princess at the end of Sarai.
The Tau is still pronounced like T and S in Hebrew today.
Ashtoreth is another name for the sun, during the equinox.
Adam Man, Geek philosophers and mathematicians studied in Egypt, Greek women liked Egypt too, and a lot of Greek culture came from Africa.
Greeks even ruled part of Africa for awhile, they’re also famous for drunken orgies and prostitutes.
Considering those things, how many words for perverted sex have Greek origins, and the prevalence of curly hair in Greek populations…
What makes you think Greeks don’t have negro blood?
Ashera is an Asura like Ashtoreth.
Asura’ s have been around for a long time, and they’re know for different things, according to the population they’re in…
Enemies in India, allies in Persia, male and female, like the male/female God who created us in his image, male and female…
Asherah and Ashtoreth are the same name in different places.
Asherah (/əˈʃɪərə/; Hebrew: אֲשֵׁרָה ʾăšērā; Ugaritic: ‘Aṯirat; Hittite: a-še-ir-tu4;[2] Akkadian: a-ši-RAT;[3] Qatabanian: ʾṮRT),[4] in ancient Semitic religion, is a mother goddess who appears in a number of ancient sources. She appears in Akkadian writings by the name of Ašratu(m), and in Hittite writings as Aserdu(s) or Asertu(s). Asherah is generally considered identical with the Ugaritic goddess ʾAṯiratu.
Asherah
אֲשֵׁרָה
Goddess of motherhood and fertility
Lady of the Sea
There’s only one God, male and female; we were created in God’s image. God has many names in many languages, and God is all things to all men.
Any confusion about how many gods or goddesses exist is only in the minds of the confused parties and does not represent God at all.
Ashera is an Asura like Ashtoreth.
Asura’ s have been around for a long time, and just like modern people, they’re know for different things, according to the population they’re in…
Enemies in India, allies in Persia, male and female, like the male/female God who created us in his image, male and female…
Ashera is also known as Atiratu, that doesn’t mean they’re different at all. It only means there’s different ways of spelling and pronuncing the same name in different places, like Surya, Asura, Ashura, Ashera, Atoraye, Torah, and Ashtoreth, all emanate from God as words for sun.
The sun as the shekina of God, in Psalm 19 for example. The Bridegroom in Psalm 19 is Jesus. The sun is his shekina too, because there’s only one God.
Everything that is called God to everyone is Jesus, by him all things were made, the Father hath committed all judgment to the Son, Jesus is our shepherd who preserves our lives from wolves and bears, and Jesus leads the armies of heaven as the destroyer to take vengeance for us.
Christ is all things to all men.
This is what The Bible is talking about when it says…
“In him dwelleth all the fullness of the godhead bodily.”
Asherah and Ashtoreth are the same name in different places.
Notice that the S and T are interchangeable in Ashtoreth and Ashera? Like our modern Torah pronunciations, and Asherah begins with Aleph.
Asherah (/əˈʃɪərə/; Hebrew: אֲשֵׁרָה ʾăšērā; Ugaritic: ‘Aṯirat; Hittite: a-še-ir-tu4;[2] Akkadian: a-ši-RAT;[3] Qatabanian: ʾṮRT),[4] in ancient Semitic religion, is a mother goddess who appears in a number of ancient sources. She appears in Akkadian writings by the name of Ašratu(m), and in Hittite writings as Aserdu(s) or Asertu(s). Asherah is generally considered identical with the Ugaritic goddess ʾAṯiratu.
Asherah
אֲשֵׁרָה
I’m sorry, I live off grid and don’t get much signal at my house.
I didn’t see the first post went through until I posted the second one.
Please delete the first post on Asherah and this one too.
Jesus forgives sins!
We all need Jesus to forgive our sins.
The same thing can be found in The Mahabharata, The Torah, and The Bible; the sources of most of the religions on the earth…
A story about an invisible God living on the water in darkness, who’s words create everything we see and hear: and can’t see or hear.
Baptisms in Christianity came from pilgrimages to rivers, wells, and lakes, to wash away their sins, in the Mahabharata.
They travelled thousands of miles getting baptized over and over again, getting their sins forgiven and receiving huge heavenly rewards.
But by the time they got to the next body of water, they needed to have their sins forgiven again.
The Torah is full of offerings for sin, that Hebrews tells us can never clean our consciences with regard to sin.
Buddha told us about the path of dharma, but he didn’t forgive sins in the Lotus Sutra.
Jesus was crucified on the Passover and raised on Easter: EA/YAHster
That wasn’t plagerized or a coincidence.
People in all religions need their sins forgiven.
That’s where Jesus fits in the everlasting gospel.
Jesus fulfilled prophecies in every religion. That’s what he meant by “sheep in other pastures.”
When you study ancient texts and legends you can feel how much they needed Jesus’ forgiveness, and see they had wise men and prophets telling them Jesus was coming.
It’s important for all of us to feel our sins have been forgiven.
1 Timothy 4:10
For therefore we both labour and suffer reproach, because we trust in the living God, who is the Saviour of all men, specially of those that believe.
Jesus forgave our sins before we called on him, because it’s more important for us to know forgiveness and feel forgiven, than it is for him to be worshipped.
Please don’t put any strings of hindrances on anybody who needs to feel forgiven for sinning against God.
How’s this for an anagram?
hEAven and HeaVEn, YAHVE
Since Rabbis teach that every nation had the Torah… I’ve been looking up what YAH means to everyone.
Yah is the flavor, strength and wealth we find in Yams to some people, Yah is the moon to others; and to some, Yah is the sun. Yah is time, and Yah is prayer, Yah is elegance: and since the H is feminine, Yah is a grandmother.
יהוה is YHWH in English.
HWHY is יהוה backwards.
It can be translated as Palace of Yah, or being Yah.
It can be pronounced as Hawai’i.
Yah is God in HawaiYAHn.
Dianah, the Greek goddess of the hunt and fire, comes from Sanskrit. It’s a form of meditating, on a flame in your mind.
It’s the highest form of mediation and makes you higher than a Brahmin who performed thousands of horse sacrifices and and austerities, and stands on one foot for a thousand years in any other meditation, and some other stuff like that…
The flame in Dhyana, and the flame in Dianah is Yah.
We’re taught to read too fast, but reading slower can teach us more about God.
Here’s a poem I wrote using the letters in YHWH, to show how prevalent God’s name is in English…
(Like the IA in ChristYAn, EA is another way of spelling YAH.)
“WHe can mEAsure a YAHrd, but not WHat’s in the grEAt beYAHnd,
WHo knows WHat WHe WHill fYnd up YAHnder?”
WHo? WHat, WHere? WHy? WHen?
YAHisWHY
Yah is only one syllable in YHWH/ Yawheh.
Another name for Yah, is Ani.
It’s spelled with an I in English, but the closest translation for I in Hebrew is a Y. Which we see in ANY…
As in “ANYWAY.”
WHo? WHat, WHere? WHy? WHen?
YAHisWHY
Since Asura, Asshur and Assyrian are such ancient names with meaning in Sanskrit and Hebrew, we can use them to decipher other languages too.
Here’s a few spellings for the same basic name…
Sūrāyē/Suryoye/ʾĀṯōrāyē
Asura, Ashura.
I see Yah/Shua in there…
Yah is a name for the sun and IA is a name for time in Egypt and Shu or Shua is a name for the sky in Egypt too.
I see RA and Torah too.
I see YHUH, which can be pronounced as YHWH.
RA’s name is all over the Torah in the equidistant letter skips they use in the Torah code. Ra is also the second syllable in Israel.
Using Asura’s as a key, we can follow those names into Sanskrit too.
All the way to Surya the sun.
YWHY has been translated as, I am that I am.
In Hebrew, ANY means, “I am.”
So this is probably the most faithful English translation of these words you have ever seen…
I am the way.
ANYtheWAY
Anyway I look, I see Jesus.
In him dwelleth all the fullness of the godhead bodily.
Something I recently learned from my studies on Yah…
Rabbi Michael L Munk, teaches the Torah is written in Assyrian.
There’s no such thing as a Hebrew alphabet.
Proto-Hebrew is Phonecian, and modern Hebrew is Assyrian.
Berashit Bera Elohim, is the Hebrew translation of BRASHYT BRA ALHYM in the original Assyrian Torah scrolls.
And the correct pronunciation for Yah is YH. Praise the name of YH, is an exhale. You can’t do it loudly.
YHWH is holy, unspoken too.
We can YHWH’s name to learn great mysteries, and understand languages; but the real wisdom is in meditating on it.
God’s breath, the ruach, breath and mind of God are implied in YHWH; but it’s more than God’s breath and mind.
Unspoken and undefined, YHWH.
Pronouncing YHWH is idolatry.
We commit idolatry in our hearts, thinking that we can know everything that can be known about God: like we commit adultery in our hearts, when we look on a woman to lust after her.
That’s why Yawheh is a pagan god, aka Moloch; and Yashua/Yeshua’s name that traces it’s origins to Yawheh is a pagan god too, Moloch’s son.
Jesus told us to call God, “Our Father,” when we pray, and never pronounced his Father’s name.
Jesus’ etymolgy goes back to Jesus…
Matthew 28:19
Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the NAME of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost:
The Father’s name is Jesus, it’s the only name he’ll honor.
The only name anyone baptized in was Jesus.
Jesus’ genealogy goes back to Asshur, the sun Surya, and the Torah. His grandma’s name was Sari/Surya, and Abram was a Braman.
John was named after Janardana, and his baptisms were Vedic. Dan was named after Danu the Vedic serpent, Christ comes from Krishna.
When the woman was waiting for, The Messias that is called Christ, Jesus said, it’s him.
Jesus is the Messias who is called Christ, and his name is Jesus Christ.
J has a numerical value of 0 in the Torah. Like the pronunciation of YHWH…
All these years without a zero?
Think about what a zero did for computer technology…
Jesus Christ is…
Far above all principality, and power, and might, and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this world, but also in that which is to come:
Ephesians 1:21
I should have said,
We create an idol in our minds when we add vowels, letters, and other sounds to YHWH and YH, in order to make them fit our image of what we want them to say.
Then people kill each other over idolized ideas of the same God, and pronunciations that only exist due to ignorance.
Instead of having enough respect to meditate on the name he gave us, and not changing it into an idol of the many things YH has come to mean in different places around the world…
We have war in the middle east, spreading throughout the globe, over idols we created in the image of YH.
What is the difference between an idol and one of many words that were inspired by people who were thankful to YH?
What makes Yah a pagan god, when Yah has been the name of the sun and the moon?
Job 31:26-28
If I beheld the sun when it shined, or the moon walking in brightness;
And my heart hath been secretly enticed, or my mouth hath kissed my hand:
This also were an iniquity to be punished by the judge: for I should have denied the God that is above.