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Goodbye Jesus

"god" Vs. "yahweh"


mcdaddy

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Something I've felt for a long time is that if people stopped calling their deity the overbearingly generic term "God" and actually called him by his given name "Yahweh" (or, if they're more comfortable, "El", "El Shaddai", "Jehovah", "Ehyeh Asher Ehyeh", or whichever of the countless different god's names other names he goes by) they'd be more susceptible to thinking of him/it in a more contextual sense, relating him more closely with the OT deity? Do you see what I'm saying?

 

I think if people went around saying, " I have a word from yahweh", or "Yahweh answered my prayers!" or whatever, it links it better to an ancient tribal mindset, as opposed to the more universalistic, ethereal, lovey-dovey god concept people have nowadays.

 

'Oh, Yahweh answered your prayers? That same dude that says my daughter, who was raped, has to marry her attacker? How sweet!"

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Good point mcdaddy. This is true about many words. "God" and "love" are confusing terms and people use them all the time. Language sucks. I wish we could find a better way to communicate.

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I think el means god, anyways YHWH is rarely used because to a christian / jew its sacred and so they're afraid if they use it they might take it in vain. I don't think it matters though in western society god = yahwah just like in muslim ones Allah = well Allah.

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El was a specific god, the high god of the canaanite pantheon of gods. He was the mackdaddy of them all. Yahweh was one of his 70 sons. Theres some verse miraculously not edited out of the bible that says Israel is Yahweh's portion of people given to him by El. something to that effect. But if you look on wikipedia about the "Ugaritic texts" it explains all this alot more.

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Yep you're right sorry, I'm too used to my old days of being taught that El was god.

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That's what they want you to think.

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Guest Babylonian Dream

Allah is arabic for the hebrew El, and the english God. Literally the same name, same God.

 

El Shaddai is also the name for the God who is the head of the Shaddai, a group of canaanite Gods who played a role in the canaanite version of the biblical story of Balaam son of Beor. Literally the same story. It was in the Deir Alla inscription.

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This kinda stuff was phase one of my deconversion.

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Btw, I had read shaddai meant "of the mountains" or something.

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I've been doing that for a while. There are so many gods that it seems silly to single one out to call God. If I call my cat Cat (or more likely Where's That Goddamned Cat), it may pointedly ignore me, but at least there aren't many other options regarding who is about to get blamed for puking on my pink sandals. Besides, a lot of my gripes with the Judeo-Christian myth involve the Old Testament.

 

Learning that there was an entire pantheon of gods who got systematically assimilated or pushed out to create the construct of Yahweh was a big problem for me, too.

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As it should be. Finding out that these 20+ "different names of God" (each one displaying a different aspect of his greatness, ya know!!) are LITERALLY different ancient gods that were amalgamated into one super deity does a little something to your belief that this holy book was handed down from on high by the "One True God". This is the kind of shit I wish people like Thumb and JayL would open their eyes and SEE.

 

You hate Baal? Ha! Yahweh is Baal! You hate Molech?! He's in there too! Take any ancient middle eastern deity and there's more than likely some aspect of t that's been incorporated into Yahweh. Like how he rides the clouds and battled sea monsters or whatever the hell it says in the bible. Total rip off.

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On the cross, Jesus said: My El My El why has thou forsaken me.

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You hate Baal?

Baal is "lord."

 

mwc

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You hate Baal?

Baal is "lord."

 

mwc

 

Right. Baal is seen as yahweh's greatest rival in OT times by most xians. so they hate them some baal.

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On the cross, Jesus said: My El My El why has thou forsaken me.

 

If it was originally written in greek, wouldn't it have said "theos" instead of "el"? unless they directly copied from psalms where it probably said "el".

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On the cross, Jesus said: My El My El why has thou forsaken me.

 

If it was originally written in greek, wouldn't it have said "theos" instead of "el"? unless they directly copied from psalms where it probably said "el".

It said neither. It says "E'lo-i, E'lo-i, la'ma sabach-tha'ni?" in G.Mark and "Eli, Eli, la'ma sabach-tha'ni?" in G.Matthew which both translate to "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?" from the Aramaic. Strangely enough the Jews in the area, who we might assume speak Aramaic as well, don't understand what is being said. I've seen it said that "god" here would be better translated by "power" as the Aramaic lacked "god" proper. I haven't research this to any extent (it doesn't sound unreasonable).

 

mwc

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Face palm. I knew that. Been a while since I picked up the good book tho.

 

Yeah, in the text somewhere it says they thought he was calling to Elijah bc he was saying Eloi or whatever.

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Guest Babylonian Dream

Btw, I had read shaddai meant "of the mountains" or something.

Yes, it does, in hebrew. The Shaddai/Shaddain are also a group of canaanite gods. Interesting to also note, temples in the region were either usually built upon hills/mountains, or were upon artificial hills/mountains (Ziggurats). Mountains were the places where the gods lived.

 

Also, there is also the possibility that shaddai as "of the mountains" might be a folk etymology, in otherwords, seen as meaning something it originally did not. Like with prometheus. The name, as the folk etymology has it, means forethought. But originally, if you deconstruct the word and bring it back to the earlier usages, it came from the protoindoeuropean word for firestealer.

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Btw, I had read shaddai meant "of the mountains" or something.

Yes, it does, in hebrew. The Shaddai/Shaddain are also a group of canaanite gods. Interesting to also note, temples in the region were either usually built upon hills/mountains, or were upon artificial hills/mountains (Ziggurats). Mountains were the places where the gods lived.

 

Also, there is also the possibility that shaddai as "of the mountains" might be a folk etymology, in otherwords, seen as meaning something it originally did not. Like with prometheus. The name, as the folk etymology has it, means forethought. But originally, if you deconstruct the word and bring it back to the earlier usages, it came from the protoindoeuropean word for firestealer.

 

I think Shaddai, in its original etymology, meant, "rumpshakers". So el shaddai is Lord Rumpshaker.

 

But I have absolutely zero proof of that.

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