THE TRUE NAME OF GOD

(The "Historical Evolution" of the Hebrew God, variously called Yahweh, Yaw, Yah, Yahu, El or Elohim)



To be brief and blunt, Yahweh is merely an amalgamation of various and multiple earlier gods and goddesses. The “Proto-Hebrews having imbued their God with the functions, epithets, symbols and achievements of many other earlier and contemporary gods and goddesses.



The evolution of God, from a multitude of various earlier deities to the currently accepted and locally popular version of a single omnipotent deity, is well documented.



It is a scholastically well known but, an under appreciated fact, that many portions of the Old Testament are dedicated to establishing Yahweh’s superiority over the other Gods.



Transliterations and Allusions to Assyrian, Babylonian, Hittite, Hurrian, Persian, Aramean and Caananite creation myths are incorporated into many passages praising Yahweh’s supremacy.



Contrary to popular belief the Hebrews did not originally have a monotheistic religion. Theirs were the gods and goddesses of the land from which they were native; the hierarchy of gods and goddesses who included Baal, the god of storms, who made the land fertile, and Lotan, the seven-headed dragon, known to Old Testament readers as Leviathan. Ashera, identical to the Egyptian Isis, There is Yam Nahar, the god of the seas and rivers, and other pantheons and hierarchies of gods and goddesses. A little known fact is that the Hebrews also had twelve main deities and a multitude of minor ones.



It is startling and profoundly sobering when the words of the world's oldest surviving literatures – of India and Sumeria, correspond so closely to current Judeo-Christian-Islamic scriptures that an actual historical chain of descent can be followed.



The Bible’s repeated uses of “Pagan” mythologies confirm for us that the Semites believed that other Gods existed. They simply used the myths of other peoples to argue the superiority of Yahweh.



Strict monotheists would have felt no need to support a monotheistic viewpoint from “pagan mythology”.

Comparisons between battle myths from the ancient Near Eastern and biblical narratives have convinced most scholars that the Hebrew accounts of ‘Yahweh’s’ battles with various monsters and other entities is additional evidence that Hebrew theology is borrowed from surrounding nations.

In every case where these references are used it is to affirm the triumph of Yahweh over the other “Gods”, the establishment of his rule on earth and his superiority over the other gods.



These features can be found in Indian, Sumerian, Akkadian (later Babylonian and Assyrian) and even many Mesoamerican texts.



The accumulation of these legends and stories and their eventual incorporation into a single coherent saga with a definite theological outlook was a product of the astonishingly creative period of literature in the kingdom of Judah in the 7th through 6th century BCE.



The Bible's owes a great indebtedness to the motifs found in the literature of surrounding contemporary and ancient countries.



The literature created by the Sumerians left a deep impression on the Proto-Semites who in turn heavily influenced the Hebrews. One of the most thrilling aspects of reconstructing and translating Sumerian cuneiform script consists in tracing parallels and resemblances between Sumerian and Biblical literary motifs.



Since the Sumerians preceded and ruled the same lands prior to the rise of the Semitic peoples, there is no doubt that the Sumerians had directly and deeply influenced the “Proto-Semites”, including Abraham and especially the Canaanites and their neighbors, the Assyrians, Babylonians, Hittites, Hurrians, Arameans and Midianites amongst others.



These influences are easily traceable in matters of law, religion and philosophy as well as myths, legends and stories.



This information is not surprising; most scholars have long recognized that along with many other tribal chieftains of the period, Abraham led members of his tribe from the Sumerian city of Ur, west towards the Mediterranean, to the "promised land" of Canaan. With these “Proto-Semitics” came their Gods and Goddesses.



Thanks to the re-discovery in modern times, of considerable portions of Sumerian, Egyptian, Hittite and Hurrian, Ugaritic and many other ancient texts and literature it is now possible to recognize in the Bible many traces of Near and even Far Eastern mythologies.



These “traces” generally appear in three forms:

Direct Parallels
Allusions
Survivals (in figurative expressions)


In all cases they are accommodated to the religion of Israel by boldly transferring to Yahweh the heroic feats of older/other pagan gods.



For example, Sumerian literature contains a number of literary forms and themes found much later in the Bible.



Some of the more conspicuous themes involve:

The creation of the universe
The creation of Man
The techniques used in creation
Paradise (Eden or Dilmun)
The withholding of immortality from man
The ‘Cain-Abel’ motif
The ‘Tower of Babel’ motif
The earth and its organization
Divine retribution and natural catastrophe
The plague
The ‘Job’ motif
Death and the under world
Concerns with law, ethics and morality
The flood (the story that has the closest connection with biblical literature.)


Below are just a few parallels to digest (there are many, many more):



The Throne of God
Enki/Ea
Sits upon a throne decorated with pots from which flow two streams of water, indicating he is the source of the earth's streams of freshwater.

Yahweh
Sits upon a throne portrayed as being over a stream of freshwater that leaves the temple in Jerusalem and travels eastward to the Dead Sea, rejuvenating it.






Many similar motifs can be found in:

The “Myth” of Adapa
Food conferring immortality, a god denying man immortality, the acquisition of forbidden knowledge.

The story of Genesis
Food conferring immortality, God denying man immortality, the acquisition of forbidden knowledge.




The Tower Of Babel

Enki/Ea
Confounded the language of the people of the earth.



“Enki, the contender...En of cunning, the shrewd one of the land, sage of the gods, gifted in thinking, the En of Eridu, change the speech of their mouths, he having set up contention in it, in the human speech that had been one.”

Yahweh/El
Confounded man's single language because of their hubris in building the Tower of Babel.




The Deluge
Enki/Ea
Warned Ziusudra (or Utnapishtim) of an impending Flood that would destroy the world and all of mankind. Telling him to save himself and the seeds of all living things by building a boat.

Yahweh/El
Warned Noah of an impending Flood that would destroy the world and all of mankind. Telling him to save himself and all the animals by building a boat.


(Later generations embellished this Sumerian myth into a world-encompassing flood. Archaeologists later found flood deposits at Utnapishtim's city of Shurrupak in Lower Mesopotamian, “the Flood” was determined to have been a flooding of the Euphrates river in the 4th-3rd millenniums BCE, based on the microscopic analysis of the flood sediments.)



Almost every ancient civilization has a story of the great flood and the survivors who were warned by a God.

The biblical version of the "Great Flood’s" happy ending is chock full of biblical contradictions. It begins by telling of man's abominations including the corruption of the purity of the "Sons of God". A decision is reached to have all flesh perish.

The same Deity rushes Noah in 7 days to build an Ark to save the seed of mankind and all living things. Why? Was the Deity's purpose in this to defeat his own plan? When the flood is over and the Ark lands the deity who is enticed by the smell of roasting meat, forgets his original determination to end all mankind, and even makes a covenant with Noah to never do so again.

The nagging contradictions can easily be placed to rest if one considers the fact that the bible’s version is an edited version of the original Sumerian account. As in many other instances, the edited "monotheistic" Bible has compressed into one deity the roles played by one or more other gods who did not always act in accord.

From the Sumerian version, Enki who disagreed with his brother Enlil’s command to destroy all humans found a way to warn Utnapistim/Ziusudra.

'Man of Shuruppak, son of Ubar-tutu: Tear down thy house, build a ship! Give up possessions, seek thou life! Foreswear belongings, keep soul alive! Aboard ship take thou the seed of all living things; That ship thou shalt build - Her dimensions shall be to measure…

From the Bible, God determined to end all mankind then gives a reprieve and warns Noah.

Genesis 6:14 Make thee an ark of gopher wood; rooms shalt thou make in the ark, and shalt pitch it within and without with pitch.

Genesis 6:15 And this is the fashion which thou shalt make it of: The length of the ark shall be three hundred cubits, the breadth of it fifty cubits, and the height of it thirty cubits.

After the flood, Utnapishtim/Ziusudra built an altar and offered a sacrifice.

From the Enuma Elish;

'the gods smelled the savor, the gods smelled the sweet savor the gods crowded like flies about a sacrificer'

From the Bible;

Genesis 8:20 And Noah builded an altar unto the LORD; and took of every clean beast, and of every clean fowl, and offered burnt offerings on the altar.

Genesis 8:21 And the LORD smelled a sweet savour; and the LORD said in his heart, I will not again curse the ground any more for man's sake; for the imagination of man's heart is evil from his youth; neither will I again smite any more every thing living, as I have done.

At first when Enlil discovered Enki's ploy of saving the Adamu he was furious. He soon relented after realizing that all livestock and produce had been destroyed in the flood and that Enki's forethought had also prevented a disaster for the Anunnaki. Enlil was very forgiving after hunger set in and he partook of the burnt sacrifices offered by Utnapishtim/Zuisudra/Noah.

A pledge was then made to the Adamu by the Elohim as also by Yahweh to Noah, that never again would the Elohim order their destruction. It is a promise made to man that has been kept ever since (so far).

By Sumerian and biblical reckoning this flood occurred at approximately 11,000 BC. This is coincidental to the end of the last Ice Age and the time frame for the Earth Crust Displacement theory, and the emerging theory of the “Vela Intruder” and the approximate time frame when geologists believe that water erosion on the Sphinx Occurred.



The Name of God



Moses then said to God, `Look, if I go to the Israelites and say to them, “The god of your ancestors has sent me to you,” and they say to me, “What is his name?” what am I to tell them?

God said to Moses, `I am who I am’. Exodus 3:13-14

As we have learned, Enki (`Lord of the Earth’) was called Ea in Akkadian (East Semitic) – that is to say in the Babylonian tradition. Scholars have determined that Ea was vocalized as ‘Eya’. So, when Moses stood before the burning bush and asked the name of the god of the mountain, did “God” really reply `I am who I am’ (Heb. Eyah asher eyah)? This puzzling phrase has long perplexed many theologians here is our simple explanation.

The voice of God simply replied `Eyah asher Eyah’ - `I am (the one) who is called Eyah’ – the name of Ea in its West Semitic (Hebrew) form.



Some Scholars have simply failed to recognize (most often those with strong theological ties) that this is another of those characteristic puns in which the Old Testament abounds. `I am (Eyah) he who is called (asher) Ea (Eyah)’ is a classic biblical play on words.



It also explains God’s apparently nonsensical instruction:

`This is what you are to say to the Israelites, “I am has sent me to you”.



It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out that the above statement makes no sense. The words properly translated are `Eyah has sent me to you’.