OT series takeaways - so far

[Richard Stanley]

In re-reading Ellis' Cleopatra to Christ I came upon a Strabo quote (page 90) that I had forgotten. It has to do with the true origins of the Jews, which we have been recently discussing on other threads as being a 'cultural construct' rather than an ethnicity.

This region lies towards the north, and it is inhabited ... by mixed stockes of people from Egyptian and Arabian and Phoenician tribes ... But though the inhabitants are mixed up thus, the most prevalent of the accredited reports in regard to the Temple of Jerusalem, represents the ancestors of the present Judeans as Egyptians. (Strabo's Geography, book 16 2:34)​

Also in this chapter 5, Ellis discusses derivations for numerous Biblical Judaic names, and for here he brings up the frequent use of Yah in names, because it obviously relates to Yahweh. Tracing back to Egypt, as is the theme in Ellis' books, Yah (or Iah) is a lesser known Egyptian Moon god.

Iah ( Egyptian: jˁḥ, Coptic ⲟⲟϩ) is a lunar deity in ancient Egyptian religion. The word jˁḥ simply means "moon". It is also transliterated as Yah, Yah(w), Jah, Jah(w), Joh or Aah[2]​

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Worship​

By the New Kingdom (16th century to 11th century BC) he was less prominent than other gods with lunar connections, Thoth and Khonsu. As a result of the functional connection between them he could be identified with either of those deities.​

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He was sometimes considered an adult form of Khonsu and was increasingly absorbed by him. Iah continued to appear in amulets and occasional other representations, similar to Khonsu in appearance, with the same lunar symbols on his head and occasionally the same tight garments. He differed in usually wearing a full wig instead of a child's sidelock, and sometimes the Atef topped by another symbol.[3] As time went on, Iah also became Iah-Djehuty, meaning "god of the new moon".[4] In this role, he assumed the lunar aspect of Thoth (also known as Djehuty), who was the god of knowledge, writing and calculation. The segments of the moon were also used as fractional symbols in writing.[5]​

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Iah was also assimilated with Osiris, god of the dead, perhaps because, in its monthly cycle, the moon appears to renew itself.​

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One queen was named Iah.​

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iah​

This is consonant with the Sabbah brother's revelation in Secrets of the Exodus that the personal priesthood of Amenhotep III's were the Yahud.

Iah, being a Moon god, also corresponds with Judaism using a lunar calendar. And that Thoth is also a Moon god makes the name Tuth-moses link to Moses that much better.

Amenhotep III is the pharaoh who started a conflict with the Amun priesthood, so we are reflecting a Lunar to Solar dialectic here. Later, son Akhenaten establishes the Aten cult which supercedes Amun and all the other gods. Of course, the Aten is seen as a solar deity. Thus we have some contrived tensions, the resolution of which is exiled (elite) Egyptians eventually ending up conquering a Canaan which has been destabilized by the collapse of the Late Bronze Age 'world order'.

After going through a transitional 'Judge' phase, a new Judaic/Israelite kingship arises in old Canaan, yet as Ellis has demonstrated, even this was the hidden hand of Egyptian pharaohs. This process is the modus operandi that was used with Rome, then greater Europe, the USA, and now we are having our own Samson moment. The script from scripture.

 

[Richard Stanley]

Derek discusses very late dating of the OT with Russell Gmirkin. This is pretty interesting in the context of what both the late Cyrus H. Gordon and Moses Hadas had covered in their works about the many similarities between the Greek corpus and the Judaic.

Ironically, I watched an episode of Jacobovici's last night where he claims (slight) evidence for early dating:

In the following he makes much of the mention of the Habiru in the Amarna Letters, making Moses a member of Akhenaten's court:

 

[Seeker]

This process is the modus operandi that was used with Rome, then greater Europe, the USA, and now we are having our own Samson moment. The script from scripture.

No sarcasm intended, the way that you write it is as easy as reading a script, but only the hidden or obscure ones seem to get it.

 

[Richard Stanley]

Isn't that the way it's supposed to work?

 

[Seeker]

Isn't that the way it's supposed to work?

Thank You, that makes me feel like a Philosopher King, in my dreams of course, the original way. Seriously, following the Biblical "script", if we are having a "Samson" moment now, he should be followed by Judge Eli, Judge/Prophet Samuel, and finally King Saul. Ominously, either these three men and/or their sons, like Samson, were found unworthy, and the succession finally passed to the royal line of King David, the son-in-law of King Saul, and a male line descendant of Judah (by 2070 this time around?).

 

[Seeker]

I am trying to get a handle on whom you consider to be the first documented historical person in this thread, were such as Abraham, Jacob, and Joseph actually Egyptian rulers or officials in "real" life, and up until Noah were they really rulers of Mesopotamia, or is "Moses" considered to be the first Egyptian/Hebrew personality that can lead us in descent from the high priests to the ancestors of Josephus, as Barbiero claims, although apparently Barbiero himself does not consider Moses to have been really Egyptian, just an adopted one.

 

[Richard Stanley]

It's hard to say definitively as to personal historicity, IMHO. However, I tend to think that, similar to Jesus, that there is likely some real historical bones being employed, albeit given various glosses for contemporaneous propagandic effect. This is why I have moved from the ahistorical camp to more of a historicist ... of sorts. As in Derek Lambert's coined term of a mytho-historicist.

Hence, we have tried to employ a metanarrative, historical 'fabric' approach, which I think pays off in allowing one to see such as Noah's Flood having some basis in 'regional' reality, at least.

And, even if there was no historical individual named Abraham, it seems rather curious that so much later historical activity is focused on Edessa/Urfa, and Cyrus Gordon established that so much detail in the Genesis narratives was dead accurate to those times. There is even hard evidence that a high person, or persons, existed in Egypt that matches the Genesis description of Joseph, including a (tribal?) coat of many colors.

So, I am more concerned about the subtext of the narratives as they apply to our condition today, and in the aggregate as to how the preponderance of all these historical, lineal, elite red-heads is impacting this. The very names Abraham, Sarah, and Haggar seem intended to point eastward for older origins, at least as honorifics.

So, for me, the Bible narratives are speaking on two levels, the most superficial is moral and social ordering for the hoi polloi, while the deeper level is targeted to the shepherds of the former. One reads such according to one's respective culture and subcultural upbringing. The former see the Bible as addressing their various individual temporal needs, while the latter see the 'script' in its greater context, including the numerous presciptions to (re)conquer the earth.

 

[Seeker]

In addition to the younger son motif episodes of Isaac (which Gordon counts as being one), Jacob, and Joseph, the motif gets repeated with Judah's sons: Perez and Zerah, and then again with Joseph's sons: Ephraim and Manasseh.

Could one also go back to the "beginning" of Biblical "history", with Seth, the "substitute" of murdered brother Abel, and the younger brother of Cain?

 

[Seeker]

Going back even before Biblical "history", Nicholas de Vere seems to regard his "Anunnaki ancestors", Enki and Enlil, as rival brothers, or half-brothers.

 

[Richard Stanley]

I've pretty much come to the conclusion that the stories are referring to something real, but that in most cases we don't and maybe wont know the real names and exact details.

As to Enki and Enlil, this is the story as told, that they were the competing sons of Ea. Ea is much like the Canaanite El who is the father god in heaven, whose sons and daughter gods reside on Earth.

I just happened to watch another episode of Carlson's where he ends up linking time data from the OT back to the Vedic ages, which parallels the hint from the names of Abraham, Sarah, and Haggar.

See any interesting numbers?

 

[Seeker]

Just from memory, doesn't the 432,000 years have something to do with the date the Anunnaki came to Earth, according to Zacharia Sitchin?

 

[Seeker]

Concerning Abraham in India, from the "Domain of Man" site of Charles N. Pope: "Interestingly, Terah, the father of Abram, assumed the very oriental throne name of Tao in Upper Egypt. Terah assumed the Kassite/Sanskrit throne name of Burna-buriash in India. In the Book of Judges, this name is shortened to "Jo-ash." He was also remembered in India as Melik-Sadaksina (Melchizedek). He and Brahma (Abram) are associated with the founding of the Hindu religion in India! The young prince Abram, heir to the throne of this vast empire, would have spent a great deal of time in India, learned eastern philosophy and meditation, and was later remembered as a native of India. From Egypt, Abram also sent some of his sons "to the east," which now appears to have been India. This would have also served to make his memory permanent there."

 

[Seeker]

Charles N. Pope recommended this article about Abraham and Brahma: http://www.viewzone.com/abrahamx.html

 

[Richard Stanley]

This link is a great lecture by Bill Zuersher, author of a recent book, Seeing Through Christianity. I am cross-posting here, because the lecture starts out with a great textual critique of the foundations of Judaism before moving on to Christianity in the same fashion. As such, his critique of Judaism falls much in line with our position sans our take on the earlier Egyptian vector.

 

[Richard Stanley]

This video has David Rohl explaining his New Egyptian Chronology which eliminates the Greek Dark Age. As well it makes some sense out of other aspects of the period besides having Sheshong be Shisak.

For us it puts the turbulent Amarna period closer in time to all the action, while, as Rohl discusses, there may indeed be a King Saul and David to deal with. With the latter, we've seen that the so-called "Temple Mount" is really the location of Fortress Antonia, leaving a possible Temple location to be discovered in the lower City of David.

 

[Richard Stanley]

This discussion with Dr. Price discusses various elements of the OT as astrotheology. In this case, Esau can be identified with the Sun and brother Jacob with the Moon. The latter works with such as the Jews' lunar calendar. On the surface this might appear to conflict with what I had discussed, but we should keep in mind that the various royal lines actually did identify themselves, personally, with the Sun and the Moon in various ways.

If the bears that killed 42 children can be identified with the Big Dipper (and the Little Dipper?), it is interesting to note that the symbolic foundations for the global swastika appear to be the 4 equinoctial and solstice orientations of the Big Dipper. If so, I wonder what the number 42 refers to?

Elisha is operating out of the propaganda ... errr prophet factory of Bethel (the capital before Jerusalem) and his baldness indicates a lunar connection. As noted, the Bible's mention of such personal details is always significant. The two bears appear, over the horizon, and perhaps 42 stars descend (die) at this time. But why is this significant, if true?

 

[Seeker]

The two bears appear, over the horizon, and perhaps 42 stars descend (die) at this time. But why is this significant, if true?

Just a shot in the dark (night sky), but would this have anything to do with the two "beasts" (land and sea), and the AntiChrist who reigns for 42 months?

 

[Richard Stanley]

Ahhh! I forgot to think of 42/12. Good pickup. Maybe so.

 

[Richard Stanley]

For some reason I missed the first Mythvision interviews with Jacob Berman, only first seeing him there in conjunction with Ralph Ellis. In any case this first one focuses on various OT stories and the derivation of YHWH's name. Generally, I think it goes a long way to sew these threads tighter together, and after that I have only some small quibbles besides that I agree generally with Ellis' take that, yes, the pharaohs could have attacked Israel and there be no contradiction as Berman insists. This is because historical accounts are not usually telling you what really happened. For instance Hillary and Obama don't tell us that they started the Arab Spring and John McCain didn't tell us that he was playing footsies with friendly 'freedom fighters' that fight for 'freedom' on both sides depending on the circumstances.

Berman insists that 'Moses' (and brother Aaron) is one individual, but here I have come to the conclusion that Moses and Aaron are both another composite characters based upon multiple individual sets spanning several reigns of pharaohs. This is what we are thinking about 'Jesus' and here Berman thinks similarly, as he discusses in his subsequent video with Derek.

I had some problems understanding his pronunciations of some names, but he is linking Mesopotamian kings to the Egyptians via various narratives and such, and out of which we also get the name Yah. This is also related to the Canaanite pantheon, which is also an outflow from the Mesopotamian pantheon. Berman also locates a man in the northern city of Ebla that sounds suspiciously like Abraham, albeit Genesis says Ur (actually Urfa/Edessa/Sanliurfa in today's Turkey and nearby Harran). But Ebla is not too far away.

Berman mentions Hosea 2:16, and here YHWH tells his metaphorical wife, Israel, that they (the Canaanites) that they are to no longer call him master (bali, like Ba'al) but husband (ishi for man or husband). It is perplexing in that one might think that YHWH is telling the wife to call Hosea husband instead of master, but it seems clear from the context that YHWH is speaking about YHWH doing or saying this or that. The wife is metaphorical Isreal who has been 'whoring' to other nations, which was always the problem with the Canaanite city-states.

From https://biblehub.com/interlinear/hosea/2-16.htm

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Near the end Berman tells some reasons to think that Cain and Able are way out of time, and a retelling of the story of Romulus and Remus, or is it vice versa? If Berman is correct, and he also tells of some interesting parallel and simultaneous narratives in Hatti and Amarna, then as far as I'm concerned this is just one more nail in the construction of the False Dialectic. Contrary to Berman, the Jews are never rebelling or declaring independance from Egypt, but always serving either the pharaohs or their descendants, under the appellation of Ephraim, as controlled opposition.

He finishes giving a tease of the next episode on the NT and an interesting account of the origin of Satan.

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I cannot find Berman's book, so maybe he is still working on it. Here is Berman's YouTube videos and he has a Facebook page: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC4yzcsaYuPJfPymf2arGCng/videos