The Hebrew God YHWH As Two Faced Androgynous Deity
It's extensively conceded that the name of the Old Testament Hebrew God, YHWH, wasn't deduced from the Hebrew language, though the word appears to partake the common Afro- Asiatic etymological roots of the Hebrew words" hay"(" living/ being") and" hawwah"( deduced from the Hebrew root of the verb" to be"). King kush dispensary nyc
The common Afro- Asiatic root of the Hebrew word" hay" is ubiquitous in thesub-Saharan Niger- Congo group of African languages. In the Yoruba language of West Africa, for case, the root occurs in words meaning" life,"" mama ," and earth. also, the Afro- Asiatic root," h- w- h," of the Hebrew word" hawwah"( Eve) is set up in words meaning" life,"" being" and woman in the language of the Yoruba.
The godly name, YHWH, might have been deduced from a form which combined the common Afro- Asiatic roots of the Hebrew words" hay" and" hawwah;" a form generally set up in the Niger- Congo languages of Africa as a general term for godly spirits. therefore, in the Fon language of the vodu( magician) culture of Dahomey, West Africa," Yehweh" is a reverse for vodu and it means" godly spirit." In the Ewe language of southern Togo, also of West Africa," Yehweh" means" spirit."
Among the West African Yoruba, Yewa is the chthonic goddess of death and the demiworld. She's the Virgin Mary of the Yoruba pantheon in heterosexual relationship with the sky god Sango in the circumstances of his death and spiritual rejuvenation. The name YHWH might, thus, be of Hamitic derivate, and might have set up its way into the languages of the Guinea Coast Africans, whose languages belong to a different class, by artistic prolixity over centuries of close contact with the ancient Hamitic languages of East Africa( the family of languages codified" Hamitic" are a group of the" Afro- Asiatic" family of languages).
The Genesis account of the" generations" of the" manly welkin" and" womanish earth" carries strong Hamitic abstract undertones which Moses( the ancient Egyptian name" Masi" is in wide use as a particular name among African peoples) might have come acquainted with while growing up in the Upper Egyptian dominated culture of the New Kingdom which had intimate artistic and literal links with the African Kingdom of Kush which lay to its south. We're told, in the Old Testament Book, for case, that Moses had a Kushitic woman whom Mariam and Aaron( Moses' siblings) disapproved of.
The Genesis act of junction of the gods into the singular name YHWH reflects an age-old practice of Ancient Egyptian theologians. Ancient Egypt had a constantly slivering myriad of synthetic gods deduced from the junction of a plurality of deities Amun- Re, Ptah- Sokar- Osiris, Hamarkis- Kheper-Re-Amun. therefore, in the act of junction of the myriad of gods in YHWH, we see the imprint of Ancient Egyptian enculturation on Moses. Moses, still, achieved a grand junction of the Godhead rather than the partial consolidations that Ancient Egyptian theology remained limited to.
The book of Genesis identifies the name YHWH with the antique Kushitic civilization. We read the following words in the Book of Genesis" And Kush was the father of Nimrod who came the first great whipper in history. He( Nimrod) was a potent ranging whipper before YHWH; for which reason the saying goes Like Nimrod a potent ranging whipper( gibbor sayid) before YHWH."
The significance of association of the name YHWH with the fabulous idol of an antique Kushitic civilization is generally missed in the environment of theanti-Hamitism of ancient Semitic culture, indeed as the significance of the identification of the Hamitic- Jebusite King Melchizedek with the Hebrew" Most High God"( el elyon) is generallyignored.The substantiation is that Semitic culture and civilization progressed on thepre-existent matrix of the Hamitic culture of the ancient Egyptians, indeed as the culture of heathen Germanics was nurtured on thepre-existent matrix of Latin civilization. And just as the Reformations gestured the coming of age of Germanic civilization, so also did the emergence of Semitic culture substantiation a revolution involving an assertion of the Semitic identity by risinganti-Hamitic sentiments( therefore the genocidal policy of the Hebrews in Canaan would be explained down as divinely approved).
The popular interpretation of the statement" Nimrod was a potent huntsman before YHWH," forces a negative connotation on an else neutral textbook. The saying" Like Nimrod a potent huntsman before YHWH," can be interpreted as a compliment. also, the byword may be demonstrated to indicate a God- sucker relationship between YHWH and Nimrod( bone might say, in this sense, that indeed as Nebuchadnezzar was a potent huntsman before his god Marduk, so was Nimrod a potent huntsman before( his god) YHWH).
The culture of Israel had been exposed to strong Hamitic influence in the four and a half centuries of visit in Egypt( the Hebrew Book classifies the ancient Egyptians among the" sons of Ham"). The significance of the fact that Moses had a Kushitic woman becomes striking when we realize that the Jews acquired the tradition of circumcision from Hamitic societies which had rehearsed circumcision since neolithic times. The African scholar Modupe Oduyoye has demonstrated in his work, Afro- Asiatic Interpretation of Genesis, a strong Hamitic undertone of study in the garbled ideas expressed by the Hebrew pens in the Genesis creation account.
This composition explores the tenuous associations of the Hebrew God YHWH with the West African Yoruba goddess Yewa( the Yoruba of West Africa contend that their ancestors had been emigrants from the Nile region via the Lake Chad region). That YHWH might firstly have been a Kushitic unisexual cosmic deity may be explored in the peculiar trans- sexual character of the thecross-dressed( transvestite), fire- breathing West African god of thunder, lightning and atmospheric disturbances, the redoubtable Sango( Candomble Xango), Oba Koso( King of Kush). The Yoruba goddess Yewa(" Our Lady,"" Our mama") is the womanish earth deity(" IYAWO") associated in Yoruba tradition with Sango, King of Kush, at his death. Sango, according to the Candomble system, triumphs over death by luring Yewa( YHWH), the virgin goddess of the demiworld, and by this feat he reclaims his life. The goddess Yewa( YHWH) therefore, becomes a model of the spirit possession medium in the spirit possession cult of Sango. The spirit of Sango, in turn, becomes the fabulous seed of the welkin fallen to the earth the bini ha- loyim( sons of God) who observing the beauty of the daughters of men( binot ha-' adam) chose women from among them and produced as sons, the ha- gibbor- iym( men of fame, icons of old).
While the manly element in the character of Sango is explosively emphasized, the womanish( Yewa) element to the personality of the double- faced deity was saved, not only in the womanish dominated priesthood of the god inpre-colonial Oyo, but also in the association of the god's Edun ara( double/ binary thunder monuments celts) with the earth. The Alaafin( King) of Oyo, the direct assignee of Sango, was held in legal guardianship by a gang of named ladies who, as a group, represented the topmost attention of power and authority in the entire Kingdom. This crowd presided simply over the mystifications of the cult of Sango associated with the throne of Oyo. The Iya Mode was the principal medium of Sango. She was the living mystic of the spirit of Sango, and indeed though she was a woman, she was widely addressed as" Father." The King of Oyo lowered himself before no mortal besides the Iya Mode and the mediums under her care, for when a medium is held by the spirit of Sango, she's considered the" selem" manifestation of the god himself. The Iya Kere was the most important single existent in the entire palace, and in the area of Oyo. Nothing happens in the palace without her concurrence. She could hold up affairs of state by withholding the royal button and other emblematic paraphernalia of state function. She was the head of the Ilari( the King's body guards), and indeed the King's" Chief of Staff," the manlyOsi'Wefa was vanquished to her.
The double- head of the thunder god's dismissal, in Yoruba tradition, is a symbol of the basically two- faced unisexual( Sango- Yewa) nature of cosmic deity in his- her synthetic sky- earth identity( which explains why Sango is the patron deity of halves in the Yoruba pantheon of gods). In Yoruba tradition, the double dismissal- head of Sango is generally mounted on a womanish figure a representation of the Sango's womanlike alter pride or ringer, that is, the chthonic goddess Yewa, in her model part as spirit possession medium in Sango's afterlife idolization( Sango is supposed, like Jesus, to have failed by hanging). The Yoruba believe, like Christians do, that the god Sango lived on, in the skyey realms, after he'd supposedly failed on the stake, watching over humanity and chastising the wicked with lightning bolts from the welkin.
