Is Yahweh really the prime creator?

reply to post by xynephadyn


According to the Gnostic view, described in Apocrypha, he made himself a Godhead for the humans and we should not know that there is anything higher than him. A divine dictator...

reply to post by rusethorcain


I'm immune to threats...

reply to post by autowrench


Well, as you can see in a later post by me, I didn't copy from there but they published my work!

With my permission - but I didn't know it was already done.


[edit on 31-8-2010 by memyself]

reply to post by memyself


Will you show me then where it tells us that Yahweh was one of the 70 sons of El, in Canaan?

You are writing this and publishing it, where did you get that info?

Or is it a assumption, and you decided that it could be so, so you wrote it as being so, as a fact.

You do realize dont you that the majority of references you have used for your info would not be excepted in a peer review or scholarly work because those sources are not reliable. Many of them are not concrete sources because they mix facts with fiction.

So not sure who would publish such work, but either way, the sources do speak volumes when critiqued.

For example, the quote again about one of El's 70 sons being Yahweh. This can not be offered as a fact with true sources from history.

[edit on 31-8-2010 by LeoVirgo]

reply to post by memyself


Thank you. In the sincerest way...I have a feeling that God...He, She, It, They or Them....MUST have a great sense of humor.

That we discuss is really a great, great thing. Knowledge is always a good thing.

Thanks everyone. Im learning much. MS

reply to post by SheeplFlavoredAgain


The point is not the copy and paste, it is called plagiarism when one posts content without quote tags and link source. See ATS rules for this.

I know this is off-topic, but can I just say how unbelievably impressed I am that we have gotten to the third page of a God-related thread without a single hit-and-run post about how stupid everybody in the thread is for "believing in fairytales of pink unicorns" or some such?

My faith in the collective maturity of ATS members has gone up a notch.



(My faith in my own has gone down for making this post.)

reply to post by autowrench


This not a matter of quoting. This is MY TEXT and I simply wrote again here what I have myself already written elsewhere. It is not written by someone else. You seem to have missed that.

It is, instead, that webpage you link to that should have quotation marks, but it has a clear reference to me and that will be enough.

Can you really plagiarize from YOURSELF?

[edit on 31-8-2010 by memyself]

[edit on 31-8-2010 by memyself]

Below is the text omitted as allegedly "plagiarized" here: www.abovetopsecret.com...

Creation in the Gnostic Christian view

[This is MY TEXT as a review, summary and interpretation of an apocryphic text. This text was falsely assumed by the moderators to be plagiarized – see www.abovetopsecret.com... “Off Topic Post” – since it also appears elsewhere: battleofearth.wordpress.com... However, the latter text is WRITTEN BY ME and it is published there with my permission (I just didn’t know then that it had already been so, quicker than I had expected). I can understand the misunderstanding by the moderators, but it now needs to be corrected, since you certainly cannot PLAGIARIZE FROM YOURSELF.
Author: Jan Erik Sigdell, Slovenia]

This is mainly based on a German scholar translation of The Apokryphon of John [17, below]. Every translation is also an interpretation in the way the translator sees it (and, even if unconsciously, wants to see it). On top of that the following text in part is my own interpretation (which I actually feel is a bit inspired, maybe from the Epinoia [v.i.] in me).

God, the creator, the “unknown father”, the first one that ever was, creates with his thought. He thinks – and then it is there. The creative power of his thought is Barbelo, the invisible virginal spirit, the supreme female (bearing = creating) principle. She became the womb of everything (that would come to be). Out of her the Holy Spirit appeared (who the Gnostics regarded as female), the mother of the living. Her collaborator is reason (intelligence). Out of these two Christ appeared, the divine Autogenes (Emerged-Out-Of-Himself, i.e.: not procreated).
On a lower level, Sophia (Wisdom) appeared as an Emanation of Barbelo. She wanted to create a male entity to appear out of herself, but without approval of the Spirit and without letting her consort know it (consorts are mentioned in connection with entities; hence they are actually androgynous, but either the female or male part comes in appearance). It was her own idea. She actually had just a thought, but on that level thoughts are creative: you think it, and then it is there. Therefore this entity came to be in ignorance and was imperfect. Sophia realized this and regretted it, cast the entity away from her and surrounded it with a luminous cloud, so that no one might see it but the Holy Spirit. She called it Yaldabaoth.
Yaldabaoth created further entities, which became his powers. They are called the Archons. He was himself the “first Archon”. The apokryphon tells about him: “…he is ignorant darkness. And when the light had mixed with the darkness, it caused the darkness to shine. And when the darkness had mixed with the light, it darkened the light and it became neither light nor dark, but it became dim. …And he is impious in his arrogance which is in him. For he said, ‘I am God and there is no other God beside me,’ for he is ignorant of his strength, the place from which he had come.”
Sophia recognized her mistake when the shining of her light became less and she became darker. She saw how bad her son was and wept for a long time.
Yaldabaoth said to his Archons: “Come, let us create a man according to the image of God and according to our likeness…” They created a being after the image of the first complete man (like a model for humans who would come to be) and said: “Let us call him Adam…” The being so created wasn’t yet alive. Messengers of God said to Yaldabaoth “'Blow into his face something of your spirit…” He did that ignorantly, because he didn’t himself really know what he was doing. And the being became alive. Adam was luminous and had a better intelligence then the archons, and he was free from wickedness. [So far he wasn’t the physical Adam but an archetype of the human being.] Therefore they threw him out on the lower side of matter (on a level within the dark region of Yaldabaoth).
God had pity and sent a helper to Adam, the Epinoia (insight through divine inspiration) of light that is called Life [Hebrew: Heva = Eva]. She assists all creation. This Epinoia became hidden in Adam, so that the archons would not know her and she might be a correction of the deficiency of the mother (Sophia), as an emanation out of her. [She, too, was so far archetypal.]
The archons saw that Adam’s intelligence was higher and brought him into the shadow of death to recreate his body out of matter that is the ignorance of the darkness. He became a mortal human [and now the physical Adam], who the archons put in a paradise [a harmonic and timeless place]. There, he should eat from the “tree of life”, from the trees of godlessness [and live without God].
The “tree of knowledge of good and evil”, however, is the Epinoia of light (v.s.) that in disobedience to Yaldabaoth improved Adam’s intelligence. [The Hebrew name in Gen 2 is more correctly translated as “tree of wisdom”!] Therefore Yaldabaoth put him to sleep: “'I will make their hearts heavy, that they may not pay attention and may not see.” Then the Epinoia of light went to hide inside Adam. Yaldabaoth wanted to extract her through one of Adam’s ribs, but couldn’t. He therefore made another appearance in the shape of a woman, as an image of the Epinoia, into which he brought the part of Adam’s power that was all he managed to extract. Adam became awake and saw the woman. Then the Epinoia of light appeared and uncovered the veil that had been put over Adam’s intelligence. [Hence, eating from that tree has nothing to do with sexuality, but with wanting to know more than Yaldabaoth would allow…]
It wasn’t a snake (an entity in the shape of a snake) that made Eve eat from the “tree of knowledge [wisdom!], but it was Christ in the shape of an eagle who told her to do that, in order to “teach them and awaken them out of the depth of sleep.” That happened against the will of Yaldabaoth.
Sophia had come down as this Epinoia in order to correct her mistake, and for that reason she was then called Life [Heva, Eve], the mother of the living. Through her they could taste full insight [they ate from the “tree of knowledge”, better: “tree of wisdom”]. Yaldabaoth saw that they were drifting away from him and cursed his Earth. He threw them out of his paradise and clothed them in darkness. He then raped Eve and through her begot two sons, who he called Cain and Abel. Later Adam begot Seth with Eve.

(continued)

Yaldabaoth wanted to control the thinking of the humans and brought fate (Greek: heimarmene) into the world. Hence his whole creating became blind and couldn’t see God. [Heimarmene comes from meiromai that means something like “acquire one’s part”, which may lead the thought to karma…]
[The identity Yaldabaoth = Yahweh is obvious… and as far as the archons are concerned, one may think of the Anunnaki, and Barbelo may remind us of Ti’âmat.]

Additions from other apocrypha:
In the Hypostasis of the Archons [18] is written that Yaldabaoth said: “‘It is I who am God; there is none apart from me.’ When he said this, he sinned against the entirety. And this speech got up to Incorruptibility; then there was a voice that came forth from Incorruptibility, saying, ‘You are mistaken, Samael’” Samael is another name of Yaldabaoth that means “god of the blind”. He is blind to all that is above him. Also here the archons wanted to “defile” Eve. It was forbidden to Adam and Eve to eat from the Tree of Knowledge. Therefore the female spiritual principle came as a teacher in the shape of a snake and said: “…it was out of jealousy that he said this to you. Rather your eyes shall open and you shall come to be like gods.” They ate and recognized that they were naked, but not in the sense of being unclothed, but “naked of the spiritual element”, i.e., they discovered that a spiritual element was missing. Also in this text it seems that possible Cain was the result of the “defilation” of Eve by the archons, but not Abel. Is that supposed to explain the difference between them?
In The Apocalypse of Adam [19] is written that Adam said to his son Seth: “Then the God who created us, created a son from himself and Eve, your mother.” Similarly as above.
In The Origin of the World [20] is written that the blood of the female principle Pronoia (Barbelo) flowed like light into the world. Out of this blood Eros arose, and with him the “pleasure of the flesh”. Here, too, the archons “cast their seed” upon Eve, and out of the seed of the first archon (Yaldabaoth) Abel was born.

References:
17. web.archive.org... (in German), in English www.gnosis.org... and www.gnosis.org...
18. gnosis.org...
19. gnosis.org...
20. gnosis.org...

NOTE:
Overall quotations marks are NOT needed because this is my own text, and it contains no direct quotations from the translation of the apocryphic text I refer to - except what is at a few locations already marked with "..." within the text - since I review, summarize and interpret that text it in my own words.

[edit on 31-8-2010 by memyself]

[edit on 31-8-2010 by memyself]

reply to post by LeoVirgo


www.bibleorigins.net...
“Professor Cohn noted that some scholars suspected that Ugaritic Yaw might be the prototype for Yahweh:
‘It is becoming ever more difficult to say with any confidence when, where and how the Israelites first came to know the god Yahweh. It may be that, as Exodus says, he was originally a Midianite god, introduced into the land of Canaan by immigrants from Egypt; or he may have started as a minor member of the Canaanite pantheon...Originally El was the supreme god for Israelites as he had always been for Canaanites. Even if one discounts the pronouncement of El in the Baal cycle, 'The name of my son is Yaw' - the import of which is still being debated - one cannot ignore a passage in the Bible which shows Yahweh as subordinate to El. Deuteronomy 32:8 tells how when El Elyon, i.e., El the Most High, parcelled out the nations between his sons, Yahweh received Israel as his portion.’ (pp.131-132. ‘Yahweh and the Jerusalem Monarchy.’ Norman Cohn. Cosmos, Chaos and the World to Come, The Ancient Roots of Apocalyptic Faith. New Haven and London. Yale University Press. 1993)”

en.wikipedia.org...
“For God's (yhwh) portion is his people;
Jacob is the lot of his inheritance.
This passage appears to identify Elyon with Elohim, but not necessarily with God. It can be read to mean that Elyon separated mankind into 70 nations according to his 70 sons (the 70 sons of El being mentioned in the Ugaritic texts), each of these sons to be the tutelary god over one of the 70 nations, one of them being the God of Israel, Yahweh.”

www.theology.edu...
“There is one Ugaritic text which seems to indicate that among the inhabitants of Ugarit, Yahweh was viewed as another son of El. KTU 1.1 IV 14 says:
sm . bny . yw . ilt
‘The name of the son of god, Yahweh.’
This text seems to show that Yahweh was known at Ugarit, though not as the Lord but as one of the many sons of El.”

If I can take time for it I will also search some of the scholar texts I have.
As for scholar texts they limit the scope to rational analysis and fear to consider what may be regarded as a bit "esoteric" (or maybe "inspired"), which can be of much value, nevertheless.

Above a short contribution by me has been marked as "Off Topic". It really was an important correction, but written in a way that some obviously didn't like ...

Above you will in some of my posts find "Bere#" because new US rules concerning "dirty" words filter such words out and, therefore, may cripple some foreign words that contain a part which APPEARS "dirty" to that filter.
Really quite ridiculous!

The correction I, therefore, need to make is that "Bere#" should be "Bereshijt", but I had written it in a more common transliteration without the "j". So the part "-shijt" (without the "j") was cut off and replaced with "#". Remove the "j" and you will see why...

This is certainly an absurd consequence of this filter!!!
NOW PLEASE DON'T CONSIDER THIS "OFF TOPIC" BECAUSE OF THIS, BECAUSE THE CORRECTION IS REALLY NEEDED, AND AN EXPLANATION OF HOW THIS ERROR OCCURRED IN THE POSTS IS ALSO NEEDED.



[edit on 31-8-2010 by memyself]

[edit on 31-8-2010 by memyself]

[edit on 31-8-2010 by memyself]

[edit on 31-8-2010 by memyself]

Originally posted by pro-all
reply to post by memyself

 

"The Anunnaki theory of creation seems to resonate well with critical thinkers and I want to belong to this group. But then at the end of the day, the Anunnaki do not come close to explaining the truth of the universe."

the truth of the universe is that we are a part of it.god yahweh allah jesus et al are all a part of the cultures and societies we are specifically brought in.maybe that is what these guys have been hammering in for millenia.2000 years a.d. is nothing compared to a 15 billion years old universe. we've been exploited to much for so long to wallow in this mire.now can we move up to the next level please?

Originally posted by memyself
The miserable condition of this planet to day is to a large extent the result of abusing religions as power tools to control us and telling us lies about ourselves and our origin.

I personally think life is a horror because we're organic creatures that require a lot of energy to sustain ourselves, and we're programmed on a genetic level to rapidly decay and die so that a newer generation more adapted to the changing environment can take over.

In this case, the truth is no more palatable than the lies, so what's the difference?

If this is part of some overall plan, I don't know what it could be. But it doesn't matter what you believe or who tells you what or has control over you. It all ends the same way for everybody, for some sooner and more horribly than others.

The only thing we can do is try to make the best of it, or maybe kill ourselves, although what's the point, since we'll all be dead soon enough.

reply to post by memyself

“There is one Ugaritic text which seems to indicate that among the inhabitants of Ugarit, Yahweh was viewed as another son of El. KTU 1.1 IV 14 says: sm . bny . yw . ilt ‘The name of the son of god, Yahweh.’ This text seems to show that Yahweh was known at Ugarit, though not as the Lord but as one of the many sons of El.”

As much as I would love to accept this fully, for it would show assimilation of the names of 'god/gods'...I just dont think that the translation of just 'YW' is enough to say that this is a translation for Yahweh which was known for at least having a root of 4 letters.

Maybe Im missing something here, but Im still seeing assumption. Dont get me wrong, I make the same personal assumption when it comes to this idea. But I dont think there is enough evidence to come right out and say..Yahweh was KNOWN as 1 of the 70 sons of El in this land of Canaan.

reply to post by LeoVirgo


It has been claimed that Yahu is an alternative name of Yahweh, and that could fit with "yw".

So for the moment let us say it this way: There is evidence that Yahweh could be one of the sons of El Elyon. This is, therefore, assumed even by some scholars.

Then let us see when we have time to investigate further what scholar literature says about it.

reply to post by enkira

And a reply to pro-all

The Sumerian creation story says as follows (n my words):
First there were Apsu (male) and Tiamat (female) , the two prime creators [or the male and female side on one prime creator] who created the gods (divinites) and the worlds. Among these divinities were the Anunnaki (so called since their leader was called Anu). They behaved negatively and disturbed the order in the creation. Therefore, Apsu wanted to reverse their creation, but Tiamat (the prime mother of the creation and, therefore, also of them) opposed it. Then the Anunnaki killed Apsu and Tiamat. Can you kill the prime creators? Of course NOT! It will mean that they separated themselves off from the prime creators and lived on as if they were dead, isolating themselves in a darker region of creation. Later the Anunnaki "created" man on Earth, i.e., genetically modified - manipulated - Earth life forms.

Compare this with the "unknown father" and Barbelo in the "Apokryphon of John" an some other apocrypha, and with the entity Yaldabaoth who was separated off in a darker region, where he and his archons created a kind of archetype of man.

According to this, we live in a darker region and it is our destiny to find a way out of it against all that is done to hinder us. According to the apocrypha, a "compass" in us for that way is our Epinoia of Light, being a divine spark hidden in us, that is "divine inspiration" that can overcome the manipulative inertia of the rational mind.

reply to post by Blue Shift


The only thing we can do is to realize what Jesus as a messenger of the true Christ (not the fake one of the Churches) taught us: LOVE!!! There is no one at all in the world who is not our brother or sister, because we all have the same divine origin (we are only on different levels in our individual development). Once we are able to LIVE that, and not only have it as an idea in our heads, we are beginning a path out of the darkness.

But when we hate and fight we are still caught in darkness...

I have just barely finished the first page and it took me over an hour.

What you have been typing is exactly what I have suspected for years. You explain it better than I could ever dream to.

So we, as humans, got a bad hand from the get-go. We are surrounded by evil gods/aliens...

Now, this prime-creator - am I to understand that he/it doesn't judge, and is only responsible for creation? Is he/it accessible to us somehow?

Also, I would absolutely love to know how I can get a hold of your book (if it's done).

Thanks for putting so much time into this. I would love to see what some Christians/Muslims/Jews (who have really read through EVERYTHING) would have to say about this.

Very impressive work!!!

Originally posted by rusethorcain
reply to post by memyself

 

Please. I can't handle another debate about the existence of God which this will quickly devolve into. An ugly fight between atheists and theologians where someone always walks away with their feelings hurt.
But while I am here lamenting...
I wonder why the most strictly religious people cannot say, spell or write the full name of God. They are not allowed to say the name. What is that all about?

You wrote all the above yourself? No quote from other sources? Just curious.

[edit on 30-8-2010 by rusethorcain]

There is another reason for the G-d. Its out of reverence when written, because written work, like song lyrics, get plagerized and sometimes twisted. The author of the written work feels that if their work is used for other purposes, even unbenownst to them, that the name could be used in a vain or misused manner, of which they would be ultimately responsible in the first place. At least thats how I've come to understand it.