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originally posted by: Krazysh0t
a reply to: Spider879
Does this mean it could also be possible that the early Hebrews renamed their religious figures to more glorify their actions in life? I mean if Abram means "father of the people", that is an AWFULLY convenient name to give your child who later grows up to be the father of three major religions after he dies (actually many more than that, but only three mater at this time).
originally posted by: Krazysh0t
a reply to: crazyewok
Yea, they are probably the big two, but you can also see characteristics of other gods from later civilizations within god's "personality" so it's tough to say, but the Shasu calling their god YHW is CERTAINLY an intriguing detail.
I wonder if the OP is going to go into the influences of Zoroastrianism on Abrahamic faiths, or is he just sticking to the Egyptian region of the world?
Link
An approximate date of 1200-1500 BCE has been established through archaeological evidence and linguistic comparisons with the Hindu text, the Rig Veda.
originally posted by: Krazysh0t
a reply to: crazyewok
That really sheds light on when people in modern times give someone a religious name. If you name your child Abraham, you could very well be misnaming the very patriarch you admire that founded your religions. Interesting...
originally posted by: hubrisinxs
Given that the founding of Zoroastrianism was around the same time as the removal of the cult of Aten in Egypt there could be a strong connection between the development of Judaism and Zoroastrianism.
Also, the Shasu were a nomadic group that were subdivided into different groups presumably based on the God they followed. One of the groups followed YWH which is generally taken to be Yahweh in some early from. If one of the other groups can be shown to follow a specific god that resembles Ahura Mazda there could perhaps be a case made.
Thanks for the great responses and helping to develop my theory more.
originally posted by: Krazysh0t
a reply to: Spider879
Really? I wasn't aware of that. I would have thought the Romans had done it to the Greeks, but that goes to show how all religion comes from previous religions.
Almost all the names of the gods came into Greece from Egypt. My inquiries prove that they were all derived from a foreign source, and my opinion is that Egypt furnished the greater number. For with the exception of Neptune and the Dioscuri, whom I mentioned above, and Juno, Vesta, Themis, the Graces, and the Nereids, the other gods have been known from time immemorial in Egypt. This I assert on the authority of the Egyptians themselves. The gods, with whose names they profess themselves unacquainted, the Greeks received, I believe, from the Pelasgi, except Neptune. Of him they got their knowledge from the Libyans, by whom he has been always honoured, and who were anciently the only people that had a god of the name. The Egyptians differ from the Greeks also in paying no divine honours to heroes.
classics.mit.edu...
originally posted by: crazyewok
originally posted by: Krazysh0t
a reply to: Spider879
Does this mean it could also be possible that the early Hebrews renamed their religious figures to more glorify their actions in life? I mean if Abram means "father of the people", that is an AWFULLY convenient name to give your child who later grows up to be the father of three major religions after he dies (actually many more than that, but only three matter at this time).
Changing names certainly was not an unheard of even uncommon practice. Hell, it's done in the bible itself!
Abram name could very well have been Billy bob bob or Dwane, ok ok I joke, but you bring up a point.
Oh, so they were a polytheistic group where one of their gods was YHW? Thanks for clearing that up. Do you think it is likely that they just repurposed the name or do you think the ancient Hebrews took many different characteristics from this particular god to describe their new god?
I don't think I go to far out on a limb to say that Tut-mose is transformed by linguistic processes into Moses.
originally posted by: Krazysh0t
a reply to: hubrisinxs
So could we potentially surmise that Moses combined his people with the Shasu to form the Hebrews?
originally posted by: Spider879
Below is a hand typed quote from a Dr Charles S Finch .
Akkadian gradually replaced Sumerian as a spoken language around 2000 BC (the exact dating being a matter of debate),[5] but Sumerian continued to be used as a sacred, ceremonial, literary and scientific language in Mesopotamia until the 1st century AD
WHC: You seem to be suggesting that the Semitic monotheism Jewish, Christian and Islamic monotheism descends from African models. Is that fair?
Ehret: Yeah, actually it is. Look at the first commandment: "Thou shalt have no other gods before me." It's not like the Muslim creed, which is "There is no God but God." It's doesn't say "there is no god but Yahweh, and Moses is his prophet." It is an admittance that there are other gods. It is an example of henotheism. And the Hebrew tribes are like the Omati clan groups. The tribes are clans writ larger. Like the Omati clans, they track their ancestry back ten or fifteen generations to a common ancestor. And these common ancestors were twelve brothers. (Actually, there are thirteen. They have to turn two of them, Ephraim and Manasseh, into half tribes, because thirteen wasn't a good number. I always loved that. There are really thirteen tribes, but you have to combine two of them)
The Canaanite cities have an alternative Semitic structure: polytheism. There's Astarte and Baal and the various gods that you'll find in South Arabia. So it looks like in the early Semitic world, you have two coexisting religions. You have polytheism among the ones who are really more urbanized. Then you have henotheistic groups.
What I see here is that earlier Middle Eastern polytheism is influencing Semitic religion. After all, the early Semites were just a few Africans arriving to find a lot of other people already in the area. So they're going to have to accommodate. Some groups, maybe ones who live in peripheries, in areas with lower population densities, may be able to impose the henotheistic religion they arrived with.
WHC: How does a small group of Semites coming in from Africa transform the language of a region in which they are a minority?
Ehret: One of the archaeological possibilities is a group called the Mushabaeans. This group moves in on another group that's Middle Eastern. Out of this, you get the Natufian people. Now, we can see in the archaeology that people were using wild grains the Middle East very early, back into the late glacial age, about 18,000 years ago. But they were just using these seeds as they were. At the same time, in this northeastern corner of Africa, another people the Mushabaeans? are using grindstones along the Nile, grinding the tubers of sedges. Somewhere along the way, they began to grind grain as well. Now, it's in the Mushabian period that grindstones come into the Middle East.
Conceivably, with a fuller utilization of grains, they're making bread. We can reconstruct a word for "flatbread," like Ethiopian injira. This is before proto-Semitic divided into Ethiopian and ancient Egyptian languages. So, maybe, the grindstone increases how fully you use the land. This is the kind of thing we need to see more evidence for.
worldhistoryconnected.press.illinois.edu...