Origins of the Yahweh God

[FireBorn]

What is the origin of the Jewish/Christian god Yahweh?

Was this god as the Old Testament says, without beginning?

Or was he a Chaldean storm god like Baal? Possibly the brother of Baal, son of El Elyon the creator god (Think thats in the bible actually where it talks about dividing the nations. Interpretation fun lol)

Or a syncretized version of other myths and/or Deity or Deity mashup?

Thoughts? Lets dig into it.

 

[Ohana]

Okay my thoughts if origins are correct and is a storm god then here's what I'm thinking.

Zeus- god of thunder. Why is he the king? Why is he high up? Similar to Yahweh whose a storm god Why is he so high up? He only has one domain. Zeus also only one domain.

Another deity Indra- king and what is the god of whats that rain and thunder?

Okay my hypothesis. Human development starting in dry areas. But what do people need to live? Rain and thunder are basically a godsend. Especially after the agricultural revolution where we rely on that to get eveyone there food or else.

Not even the farmers will be able to eat. So whose the god that gets put above all the others or declared king? Ones associated with rain, thunder, sky, and storm.

Because if your not worshiping them no more crops, no more food, and tons of starvation and people don't like going hungry. Especially in dry desert areas or in areas that have to rely on the wind a lot. Thats might be why Zeus is king in ancient greece have to sail through a lot so sky gods would be put as the ones ruling for them all.

Atleast thats my working hypothesis on that pattern. From a human psychological perspective.

 

[Morell]

You can mention Thor too, protector of humanity and a thuderer too.

I think Esoterica channel did good and exhausting research on this topic. However syncretism is legit too. Easy to guess that syncretisation happens in every time and age. there is no "pure form" of any religion or myth.

 

[Swampdweller900]

Historically, from a purely academic perspective, Yahweh was one of a pantheon of Canaanite gods, the son of the Canaanite supreme god EL. Some research indicates that the pantheon and origin myth were borrowed in part from neighboring Babylonian culture.

Baal was a rival god, also a god of storms and symbolized by a bull, similar to Yahweh. As @Ohana correctly connects, desert people need a rain god. Drought and war were the two big culture-ending threats to them. And bulls (cattle in general) would have been how they stored wealth. These same dynamics exist on earth today.

After centuries of Baal worship, cults from semi-nomadic herders eventually codified, morphed into monotheists, and afterwards ended up eclipsing Baal worshipers for local power. So the god of the victors becmes the god everyone has to follow. Baal was the brother of Yahweh, and now is the blasphemer. Just like how Christians displaced other gods when they rolled into town.

Yahweh ended up becoming just the generic "El." The confusion there is that, similar to English, "El" in ancient Hebrew simply means the pronoun/title "god" and the proper name God. IsraEL = People of God, El Shaddai = God the Almighty, etc. So Yahweh as THE singular god just became...God. Why can't you say God's real name? Because that's the only god now, we don't want to remember that Yahweh had a specific name because then it opens questions about why, even in the Bible, Yahweh.

Personally, this is one of those "Tale as old as time in the ancient world" stories. The Romans eclipsed the Greeks who eclipsed the Egyptians. At the time, oral traditions and priests were all there was to keep the stories going, which makes it easy for other neighboring tales that sound good to get mixed in to the overall corpus of the pantheon. I think if you coupld go back in time and hear a few Canannite herders getting an earful from a priest in 2,467 BCE, it would sound closer to most other polytheistic stories than anything resembling post-Biblical understandings of what ether god is or was.

 

[MorganBlack]

Yep yep. Yahweh was just another local pagan god (a Semiitic desert storm deity, son of El) whose name was added to the roster of names used to refer to the Demiurge, after Jewish scribes camped out and took notes at the Library of Alexandria.

See the late, great historian Russell Gmirkin here. I hope this is the informative one:

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FYI, Zeus as the Demiurge was another one. As was the Egyptian Atum. The interesting story here is the history and permutations of the Demiurge - from Paleolithic primitiive monotheism to Neoplatonic cosmo-conception, and not the various names from different cultures to refer to him / it.

 

[Ohana]

You can mention Thor too, protector of humanity and a thuderer too.

It also makes sense that thunder and gods of thunder are put high on lists because the first time hearing thunder is one of the first times a human has to contend with a natural element thats higher than itself.

Thunder is kind of scary atleast for the first time hearing. Its big. Its loud. Its like a roar from an ancient people's perspective the heavens. It shakes the ground and it seems pretty big.

Then you lightening sometimes and from an ancients peoples perspective I too might be put with the fear of god. But then comes rain and rain means harvest so you get this complex dynamic of both fearing and loving a deity at the same times.

And probably wanting that deity to be primarily on your side.

Post automatically merged: Today at 8:58 PM

I heard the reason it seems like Zeus gets around a lot is because in ancient greece to have legitimacy to a throne. The claiming divine parentage would be your go to. So it seems like Zeus gets around a lot of father's many kings because to rule saying you were a son of Zeus was just good practice.

 

[Firetree]

Historically, from a purely academic perspective, Yahweh was one of a pantheon of Canaanite gods, the son of the Canaanite supreme god EL. Some research indicates that the pantheon and origin myth were borrowed in part from neighboring Babylonian culture.

Baal was a rival god, also a god of storms and symbolized by a bull, similar to Yahweh. As @Ohana correctly connects, desert people need a rain god. Drought and war were the two big culture-ending threats to them. And bulls (cattle in general) would have been how they stored wealth. These same dynamics exist on earth today.

After centuries of Baal worship, cults from semi-nomadic herders eventually codified, morphed into monotheists, and afterwards ended up eclipsing Baal worshipers for local power. So the god of the victors becmes the god everyone has to follow. Baal was the brother of Yahweh, and now is the blasphemer. Just like how Christians displaced other gods when they rolled into town.

Yahweh ended up becoming just the generic "El." The confusion there is that, similar to English, "El" in ancient Hebrew simply means the pronoun/title "god" and the proper name God. IsraEL = People of God, El Shaddai = God the Almighty, etc. So Yahweh as THE singular god just became...God. Why can't you say God's real name? Because that's the only god now, we don't want to remember that Yahweh had a specific name because then it opens questions about why, even in the Bible, Yahweh.

Personally, this is one of those "Tale as old as time in the ancient world" stories. The Romans eclipsed the Greeks who eclipsed the Egyptians. At the time, oral traditions and priests were all there was to keep the stories going, which makes it easy for other neighboring tales that sound good to get mixed in to the overall corpus of the pantheon. I think if you coupld go back in time and hear a few Canannite herders getting an earful from a priest in 2,467 BCE, it would sound closer to most other polytheistic stories than anything resembling post-Biblical understandings of what ether god is or was.

Good post !

One major source was from out of the Arabian desert and that came into western Caanan , but where did these Arabian nomads get it from ? That is undetermined in history . BUT , in other studies it is indicated a lot more was going on across Arabia back then , than we now know about .

We know some archaeology , but not much cultural detail (eg religions ) ;

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