Daydreamer

The Name of God(tm) – as told by a non-historian with absolutely no authority on the matter:

Around 3,500 BCE, the city of Sumer was founded on the Euphrates River. These people, the Sumerians, were major traders and scholars in their day, though poor warriors. They had a full pantheon of gods, and like any classic mythology, it was all centered around their sun-god Yoh, or more properly Yoh-el (-el being their god prefix).

Sumer flourished for over 1,600 years, only falling to the Amorites in approximately 1,900 BCE. Because they were traders and scholars instead of warriors, they had a well defined culture. And, much like the transformation of Roman culture by the Greeks which was to occur two millennia later, they may have lost the physical war, but they won the cultural one. Sumerian legend slowly started to encroach upon that of their captors, and when Hammurabi conquered most of Mesopotamia around 1,750 BCE, followed by the Hittites in 1,595 BCE, Sumerian legends began to encroach upon their myths as well. Around this time, the beginning of the Neo-Babylonian Empire, the Sumerian sun-god Yoh-el re-emerges as Babylonian sun-god Yuhoh-mel.

Somewhere around 800 BCE, as recorded in the Book of Kings in the Bible, the Babylonians took control of the Semitic Jerusalem. This time, however, the cultures clashing were near equal in depth and in the reverence paid to them by their constituents. Each gained and lost some of their religion to each other, accounting for the two semi-conflicting stories of creation in Genesis 1 (Accadian) and Genesis 2+ (Semitic), as well as for the Hercules/Samson/Gilgamesh parallels.

But that is beside the point. In this culture war, the sun god Yuhoh-mel and the Babylonian pantheon combined with existing monotheistic Judaism and gave rise to Yahweh Elohim (Elohim = the gods, plural of -el) in the newly acquired myths, and simply Yahweh in the older ones. This created an "Are we Monotheists or Polytheists?" problem aside from the trinity that was not full rectified until the King James Version of the Bible in the 1600's (and a biblical verse or two still has god say 'us' to this day).

After Alexander the Great conquered the remainder of the Babylonian Empire in 330 BCE, only to lose it to the growing Roman Empire, one final translation took place: Yahweh became Iehovah, later Jehovah. However, since the stories of what was to become the Old Testament had been committed to writing for nearly a thousand years already, combined with inter-religious hostility, little was absorbed by either culture.

Around 0 BCE, some poor bastard (this is, of course, assuming he actually existed) got nailed to a couple of planks of wood for saying a couple of rather nice things a few rather nasty things. Then, between 20 and 110 CE, a few daft people whose feet he had washed wrote down what he had said, and a few more books were added to a small splinter of the main Judaic religion.

The rest, I believe, is history.

So let us all bow our heads to the Judaism and Christianity, the long lost children of fallen Sumer.

Link 1: <a href="http://www.infidels.org/library/historical/m_d_aletheia/rationalists_manual.html" target="_blank">http://www.infidels.org/library/historical/m_d_aletheia/rationalists_manual.html</a>
Link 2: <a href="http://www.gatewaystobabylon.com" target="_blank">http://www.gatewaystobabylon.com</a>

hal9000

praise uh, Damn I don't know who to praise now. thanks a lot Daydreamer! <img src="graemlins/banghead.gif" border="0" alt="[Bang Head]" />

sighhswolf

Very informative and interesting post.
Check this out.
"After King Jannaeus, his wife Helene ruled over all Israel.
In the Temple was to be found the Foundation Stone which were engraven the letters of gods
Ineffable Name.
Whoever learned the secret of the "Name" and it's use would be able to do whatever he wished.
Therefore the sages took measures so that no one should gain this knowledge.
Lions of brass were bound to two iron pillars at the gate of the place of burnt offerings.
Should anyone enter and learn the "Name", when he left the lions would roar at him and immediately the valuable secret would be forgotten.
Yeshu (Jesus) came and learned the letters of the "name"; he wrote them upon the parchment which he placed in an open cut on his thigh and then drew the flesh over the parchment.
As he left the lions roared and he forgot the secret.
But, when he came to his house he reopened the cut in his flesh with a knife and lifted out the writing.
Then he remembered and obtained the use of the letters."
According to Ancient Hebrew myth, who ever was able to learn the "Name" of god could use it to perform miracles, and accomplish whatever they wished by simply speaking the "name".
A manuscript was translated that gave a Jewish
view of Jesus and pointed out that Jesus had been able to learn the secret and in doing so he aquired special abilities.
This manuscript was a derogatory version of the life of Jesus born of the response of the Jewish community to christianity.
This text goes on to give an insight into the aquisition of power and the loss of power resulting in the execution of Jesus.
I found it to be very interesting and in it's own way it explains a lot of the inconsistencies found in the NT.
The work is the "Toledoth Yeshu"
Enlightening to read a view of Jesus presented from the Jewish viewpoint.
Wolf

SmashingIdols

In a much simpler and humorous version of the above story, I merely tattooed the word "less" on my thigh and went on with life. I used to do crazy things like this, but every time I shower it still makes me laugh...

"In the begining was the word [ begining-less], the word was with God [word-less], and the word was God [God-less]" - John 1:1

Elsewhere, it says "The truth shall make you free." Indeed, a beginingless & endless, godless, world is very liberating indeed!

Undercurrent

More like a suffix, seems as if.

Of course, they all bowed down to the great god Micha-el, who smote all of the people who put the e before the a.

m.