Conspiracy theories, myths, or truth?

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  • #932442
    carmel
    Participant

    Hi Mike,

    Me: NO MORE NONSENSICAL QUESTIONS.

    You: Agreed.  I have no more time for your nonsensical theories, claims, or questions.  Goodbye Carmel.  I wish you all the best and will pray that God return you to a sane state.

     

    ME: MIKE,

    “DO YOU ACCEPT THAT IN ADAM  WHEN HE WAS CREATED AS

    A LIVING SOUL, OUR SPIRITUAL FATHER,

    THE ENTIRE CREATION ALL SOULS, WERE ALL IN ADAM?  
    YES or NO?”

    You: What the freak does that even mean?
    The entire creation of all souls was “in” Adam?  

    HONESTLY SPEAKING, JUST NOW MIKE, IN THE TASK BAR  I WROTE

    The entire creation of all souls was “in” Adam?

    NOW READ PLEASE:

    ixtheo.de/Record/1727648307
    Description: ‘We All Were That One Man’ – IxTheo

    Augustine’s view on the doctrine of original sin is closely informed by his view on the origin of souls. 

    He held that all people were present in Adam when he sinned and,

    since in Augustine’s view sin is in the first place a matter of the human soul, the question is the following:

    how/in what way were all human souls in Adam when he sinned?

    And how does Augustine’s answer to that question relate to Plotinus’s doctrine of the pretemporal fall of the pre-existent soul? This article argues that the terminology Augustine uses to describe what happens to the soul reflects Plotinus’s doctrine of a pretemporal fall of the pre-existent soul. While Augustine does not teach a pretemporal fall of the soul, he does teach an ontological fall of the entire human race in Adam. Just like in Plotinus’s Neoplatonic anthropology all souls share a common existence in the one Soul, so Augustine holds all human beings to have a common existence in Adam preceding their individual existence. When Adam sinned, all human beings sinned in this common existence with Adam. This renders them all guilty, even before their concrete appearance in history. Since that guilt is common, it is not an alien guilt, but their own.

     

    Peace and love in Jesus Christ

     

     

     

     

    #932455
    Proclaimer
    Participant

    Looney Tunes

    Project Loon is like the horse buggy in world already inundated with space satellite “automobiles”.  It doesn’t do a dang thing that isn’t already being done more efficiently by a different product.

    Hi Mike. I used this service called Google and it pointed me to this. Took a few minutes.

    Pros: Cheap and plentiful. Can get really good coverage with lots of them. If one fails, others act as backup. Easy to replace in a mere day if one is ready to launch. Easy to update technology with the next one. Not as damaging when one crashes.

    Cons: Fills the skies with balloons. Sitting ducks for sabotage. Not as accurate to stay in one place in turbulence, so not ideal for laser comms. Possibly more sensitive to extreme space/atmospheric conditions. Not as long lived, which can be an issue if your adversary takes out your re-launch ability. When one crashes, alien conspiracies go nuts.

    Conclusion. Use both regular and balloon sats, and have your systems be able to switch between them.

    Apparently, Loon LLC’s business model was not viable. Despite the support of several partners and investors, the company was defunct in January 2021. The project hadn’t found a way to lower costs enough to build a long-term, sustainable business.

    You see Mike, companies often try things out to see if there is a better way. They don’t always succeed. And so Alphabet dropped the project. In fact, if you know anything about Google, they have had all kinds of projects fail. And they can afford these hits because their main business create incredible amounts of money.

    #932506
    gadam123
    Participant

    Listen very carefully this time, so you don’t have to KEEP asking the same question I’ve DIRECTLY answered many times already…  There existed NO heaven and NO earth in Gen 1:1.  Gen 1:1 is an introductory statement.  Gen 2:1 is the summary statement… Thus the heavens and the earth were completed in all their vast array.

    Yes I agree with Mike on the above statement of the Priestly author who summarised his creation account in the first verse and it’s not some other earlier creation as many Christians imagine to justify their Biblical texts with the modern scientific inventions.

    Gen 1:1 In the beginning when God created the heavens and the earth,…..

    The same was confirmed within the Hebrew Bible as per Ex 20:

    11 For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, but rested the seventh day; therefore the Lord blessed the sabbath day and consecrated it.

    Theses authors always honoured their Seven-day Week and made the Sabbath as Holy day when creator God himself completed all his works in Six days and rested on Seventh day.

    I am posting here how a Jewish commentator is justifying God’s creation with reference to the present day scientific timelines for our universe…

    The creation of time
    Each day of creation is numbered. Yet there is discontinuity in the way the days are numbered. The verse says: “There is evening and morning, Day One.” But the second day doesn’t say “evening and morning, Day Two.” Rather, it says “evening and morning, a second day.” And the Torah continues with this pattern: “Evening and morning, a third day… a fourth day… a fifth day… the sixth day.” Only on the first day does the text use a different form: not “first day,” but “Day One” (“Yom Echad”). Many English translations make the mistake of writing “a first day.” That’s because editors want things to be nice and consistent. But they throw out the cosmic message in the text! Because there is a qualitative difference, as Nachmanides says, between “one” and “first.” One is absolute; first is comparative.

    Nachmanides explains that on Day One, time was created. That’s a phenomenal insight. Time was created. You can’t grab time. You don’t even see it. You can see space, you can see matter, you can feel energy, you can see light energy. I understand a creation there. But the creation of time? Eight hundred years ago, Nachmanides attained this insight from the Torah’s use of the phrase, “Day One.” And that’s exactly what Einstein taught us in the Laws of Relativity: that there was a creation, not just of space and matter, but of time itself.

    Einstein’s Law of Relativity
    Looking back in time, a scientist will view the universe as being 15 billion years old. But what is the Bible’s view of time? Maybe it sees time differently. And that makes a big difference. Albert Einstein taught us that Big Bang cosmology brings not just space and matter into existence, but that time is part of the nitty gritty. Time is a dimension. Time is affected by your view of time. How you see time depends on where you’re viewing it. A minute on the moon goes faster than a minute on the Earth. A minute on the sun goes slower. Time on the sun is actually stretched out so that if you could put a clock on the sun, it would tick more slowly. It’s a small difference, but it’s measurable and measured.

    If you could ripen oranges on the Sun, they would take longer to ripen. Why? Because time goes more slowly. Would you feel it going more slowly? No, because your biology would be part of the system. If you were living on the Sun, your heart would beat more slowly. Wherever you are, your biology is in synch with the local time. And a minute or an hour where ever you are is exactly a minute or an hour.

    If you could look from one system to another, you would see time very differently. Because depending on factors like gravity and velocity, you will perceive time in a way that is very different. The flow of time varies one location to another location. Hence the term: the law of relativity.

    Here’s an example: One evening we were sitting around the dinner table, and my 11-year-old daughter asked, “How you could have dinosaurs? How you could have billions of years scientifically – and thousands of years Biblically at the same time? So I told her to imagine a planet where time is so stretched out that while we live out two years on Earth, only three minutes will go by on that planet. Now, those places actually exist, they are observed. It would be hard to live there with their conditions, and you couldn’t get to them either, but in mental experiments you can do it. Two years are going to go by on Earth, three minutes are going to go by on the planet. So my daughter says, “Great! Send me to the planet. I’ll spend three minutes there. I’ll do two years worth of homework. I’ll come back home in three minutes, and no more homework for two years.”

    Nice try. Assuming she was age 11 when she left, and her friends were 11. She spends three minutes on the planet and then comes home. (The travel time takes no time.) How old is she when she gets back? Eleven years and 3 minutes. And her friends are 13. Because she lived out 3 minutes while we lived out 2 years. Her friends aged from 11 years to 13 years, while she’s 11 years and 3 minutes.

    Had she looked down on Earth from that planet, her perception of Earth time would be that everybody was moving very quickly because in one of her minutes, hundreds of thousands of our minutes would pass. Whereas if we looked up, she’d be moving very slowly.

    But which is correct? Is it three years? Or three minutes? The answer is both. They’re both happening at the same time. That’s the legacy of Albert Einstein. It so happens there literally billions of locations in the universe, where if you could put a clock at that location, it would tick so slowly, that from our perspective (if we could last that long) 15 billion years would go by… but the clock at that remote location would tick out six days.

    Time travel and the Big Bang
    But how does this help to explain the Bible? Because anyway the Talmud and Rashi and Nahmanides (that is the kabala) all say that Six Days of Genesis were six regular 24-hour periods not longer than our work week!

    Let’s look a bit deeper. The classical Jewish sources say that before the beginning, we don’t really know what there is. We can’t tell what predates the universe. The Midrash asks the question: Why does the Bible begin with the letter Beit? Because Beit (which is written like a backwards C) is closed in all directions and only open in the forward direction. Hence we can’t know what comes before — only after. The first letter is a Beit – closed in all directions and only open in the forward direction.

    Nachmanides expands the statement. He says that although the days are 24 hours each, they contain “kol yemot ha-olam” — all the ages and all the secrets of the world.

    Nachmanides says that before the universe, there was nothing… but then suddenly the entire creation appeared as a minuscule speck. He gives a dimension for the speck: something very tiny like the size of a grain of mustard. And he says that is the only physical creation. There was no other physical creation; all other creations were spiritual. The Nefesh (the soul of animal life) and the Neshama (the soul of human life) are spiritual creations. There’s only one physical creation, and that creation was a tiny speck. The speck is all there was. Anything else was God. In that speck was all the raw material that would be used for making everything else. Nachmanides describes the substance as “dak me’od, ein bo mamash” — very thin, no substance to it. And as this speck expanded out, this substance — so thin that it has no essence — turned into matter as we know it.

    Nachmanides further writes: “Misheyesh, yitfos bo zman” — from the moment that matter formed from this substance-less substance, time grabs hold. Not “begins.” Time is created at the beginning. But time “grabs hold.” When matter condenses, congeals, coalesces, out of this substance so thin it has no essence — that’s when the Biblical clock of the six days starts.

    Science has shown that there’s only one “substance-less substance” that can change into matter. And that’s energy. Einstein’s famous equation, E=MC2, tells us that energy can change into matter. And once it changes into matter, time grabs hold.

    Nachmanides has made a phenomenal statement. I don’t know if he knew the Laws of Relativity. But we know them now. We know that energy — light beams, radio waves, gamma rays, x-rays — all travel at the speed of light, 300 million meters per second. At the speed of light, time does not pass. The universe was aging, but time only grabs hold when matter is present. This moment of time before the clock begins for the Bible, lasted about 1/100,000 of a second. A miniscule time. But in that time, the universe expanded from a tiny speck, to about the size of the Solar System. From that moment on we have matter, and time flows forward. The Biblical clock begins here.

    Now the fact that the Bible tells us there is “evening and morning Day One” (and not “a first day”) comes to teach us time from a Biblical perspective. Einstein proved that time varies from place to place in the universe, and that time varies from perspective to perspective in the universe. The Bible says there is “evening and morning Day One”.

    Now if the Torah were seeing time from the days of Moses and Mount Sinai — long after Adam — the text would not have written Day One. Because by Sinai, hundreds of thousands of days already passed. There was a lot of time with which to compare Day One. Torah would have said “A First Day.” By the second day of Genesis, the Bible says “a second day,” because there was already the First Day with which to compare it. You could say on the second day, “what happened on the first day.” But as Nahmanides pointed out, you could not say on the first day, “what happened on the first day” because “first” implies comparison — an existing series. And there was no existing series. Day One was all there was.

    Even if the Torah was seeing time from Adam, the text would have said “a first day”, because by its own statement there were six days. The Torah says “Day One” because the Torah is looking forward from the beginning. And it says, How old is the universe? Six Days. We’ll just take time up until Adam. Six Days. We look back in time, and say the universe is approximately 15 billion years old. But every scientist knows, that when we say the universe is 15 billion years old, there’s another half of the sentence that we never say. The other half of the sentence is: The universe is 15 billion years old as seen from the time-space coordinates that we exist in on earth. That’s Einstein’s view of relativity. But what would those billions of years be as perceived from near the beginning looking forward?

    The key is that the Torah looks forward in time, from very different time-space coordinates, when the universe was small. But since then, the universe has expanded out. Space stretches, and that stretching of space totally changes the perception of time.

    Imagine in your mind going back billions of years ago to the beginning of time. Now pretend way back at the beginning of time, when time grabs hold, there’s an intelligent community. (It’s totally fictitious.) Imagine that the intelligent community has a laser, and it’s going to shoot out a blast of light, and every second it’s going to pulse. Every second — pulse. Pulse. Pulse. It shoots the light out, and then billions of years later, way far down the time line, we here on Earth have a big satellite dish, and we receive that pulse of light. And on that pulse of light is imprinted (printing information on light is called fiber optics – sending information by light), “I’m sending you a pulse every second.” And then a second goes by and the next pulse is sent.

    Light travels 300 million meters per second. So the two light pulses are separated by 300 million meters at the beginning. Now they travel through space for billions of years, and they’re going to reach the Earth billions of years later. But wait a minute. Is the universe static? No. The universe is expanding. That’s the cosmology of the universe. And that does not mean it’s expanding into an empty space outside the universe. There’s only the universe. There is no space outside the universe. The universe expands by its own space stretching. So as these pulses go through billions of years of traveling, the universe and space are stretching. As space is stretching, what’s happening to these pulses? The space between them is also stretching. So the pulses really get further and further apart.

    Billions of years later, when the first pulse arrives, we say, “Wow – a pulse!” And written on it is “I’m sending you a pulse every second.” You call all your friends, and you wait for the next pulse to arrive. Does it arrive another second later? No! A year later? Maybe not. Maybe billions of years later. Because depending on how much time this pulse of light has traveled through space, will determine the amount of stretching of space between the pulses. That’s standard astronomy.

    15 billion or six days?
    Today, we look back in time. We see 15 billion years. Looking forward from when the universe is very small — billions of times smaller — the Torah says six days. They both may be correct.

    What’s exciting about the last few years in cosmology is we now have quantified the data to know the relationship of the “view of time” from the beginning, relative to the “view of time” today. It’s not science fiction any longer. Any one of a dozen physics text books all bring the same number. The general relationship between time near the beginning when stable matter formed from the light (the energy, the electromagnetic radiation) of the creation) and time today is a million million, that is a trillion fold extension. That’s a 1 with 12 zeros after it. It is a unit-less ratio. So when a view from the beginning looking forward says “I’m sending you a pulse every second,” would we see it every second? No. We’d see it every million million seconds. Because that’s the stretching effect of the expansion of the universe. In astronomy, the term is “red shift.”

    Red shift in observed astronomical data is standard
    The Torah doesn’t say every second, does it? It says Six Days. How would we see those six days? If the Torah says we’re sending information for six days, would we receive that information as six days? No. We would receive that information as six million million days. Because the Torah’s perspective is from the beginning looking forward.

    Six million million days is a very interesting number. What would that be in years? Divide by 365 and it comes out to be 16 billion years. Essentially the estimate of the age of the universe. Not a bad guess for 3300 years ago.

    The way these two figures match up is extraordinary. I’m not speaking as a theologian; I’m making a scientific claim. I didn’t pull these numbers out of hat. That’s why I led up to the explanation very slowly, so you can follow it step-by-step.

    Now we can go one step further. Let’s look at the development of time, day-by-day, based on the expansion factor. Every time the universe doubles, the perception of time is cut in half. Now when the universe was small, it was doubling very rapidly. But as the universe gets bigger, the doubling time gets longer. This rate of expansion is quoted in “The Principles of Physical Cosmology,” a textbook that is used literally around the world.

    (In case you want to know, this exponential rate of expansion has a specific number averaged at 10 to the 12th power. That is in fact the temperature of quark confinement, when matter freezes out of the energy: 10.9 times 10 to the 12th power Kelvin degrees divided by (or the ratio to) the temperature of the universe today, 2.73 degrees. That’s the initial ratio which changes exponentially as the universe expands.)

    The calculations come out to be as follows:

    The first of the Biblical days lasted 24 hours, viewed from the “beginning of time perspective.” But the duration from our perspective was 8 billion years.

    The second day, from the Bible’s perspective lasted 24 hours. From our perspective it lasted half of the previous day, 4 billion years.

    The third 24 hour day also included half of the previous day, 2 billion years.

    The fourth 24 hour day — one billion years.

    The fifth 24 hour day — one-half billion years.

    The sixth 24 hour day — one-quarter billion years.

    When you add up the Six Days, you get the age of the universe at 15 and 3/4 billion years. The same as modern cosmology. Is it by chance?

    But there’s more. The Bible goes out on a limb and tells you what happened on each of those days. Now you can take cosmology, paleontology, archaeology, and look at the history of the world, and see whether or not they match up day-by-day. And I’ll give you a hint. They match up close enough to send chills up your spine.

    Link: https://jewsforjudaism.org/knowledge/articles/age-of-the-universe

     

    #932509
    GeneBalthrop
    Participant

    Adam…….very interesting brother.

    Peace and lovecto you and yours………..gene

    #932512
    carmel
    Participant

    Hi Gadam,

    YOU: Yes I agree with Mike on the above statement of the Priestly author who summarised his creation account in the first verse and it’s not some other earlier creation

    Presumably, you did read some of my posts. No?

    Me: I don’t rely on science regarding creation.

    But I am more convinced that Genesis 1:1 is a reference to the first-ever perfect creation.

    not a pre-Adamite as such. The pre-Adamite is the creation from Genesi 1:3 -31. which to me is not a six-day creation in relation to our  24hour-day term!

    Sin was introduced in the first creation of Genesis 1:1, and the six-day creation was subject both to the process of “THE GOOD AND THE EVIL” and to the process of DEATH through the sin in Genesis 1:1 THE FACT THAT GOD MENTIONED THEM BOTH TO ADAM!

    Genesis 2:17 But of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat. for in what day soever thou shalt eat of it, thou shalt die the death.

    Answer please:

    Which according to you is the first day of creation, in relation to the so-called six-day creation?

    Genesis 1:1, 2, or 3?

    You: The same was confirmed within the Hebrew Bible as per Ex 20:

    11 For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, but rested the seventh day; therefore the Lord blessed the sabbath day and consecrated it.

    Me: Last week I used the search engine and I discovered what the Quran says, which is quite convincing to me. Read:

    The Qur’an states that “Allah created the heavens and the earth, and all that is between them, in six days” (7:54). While on the surface this might seem similar to the account related in the Bible, there are some important distinctions. The verses that mention “six days” use the Arabic word “youm” (day). This word appears several other times in the Qur’an, each denoting a different measurement of time. In one case, the measure of a day is equated with 50,000 years (70:4), whereas another verse states that “a day in the sight of your Lord is like 1,000 years of your reckoning” (22:47). The word “youm” is thus understood, within the Qur’an, to be a long period of time — an era or eon. Therefore, Muslims interpret the description of a “six day” creation as six distinct periods or eons. The length of these periods is not precisely defined, nor are the specific developments that took place during each period.

    Now hereunder is a clear example that the word “DAY” is not a 24-hour day:

    Genesis 2:4These are the generations of the heavens and of the earth when they were created,

    IN THE DAY  that the LORD God made the earth and the heavens, 

    Me: Gadam, why in the above  says that

    THE LORD MADE THE EARTH AND THE HEAVENS IN A DAY and

    NOT IN SIX DAYS!

    ISN’T IT A CLEAR REFERENCE TO A THOUSAND YEARS?

    2Peter 3:8 But of this one thing be not ignorant, my beloved, that one day with the Lord is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day.

    #932537
    mikeboll64
    Blocked

    Proclaimer: Hi Mike. I used this service called Google and it pointed me to this. Took a few minutes.

    Glad to see that you were personally unable to come up with a reason for WHY there’d be a need for Loon at all when there are already thousands of space satellites doing the same dang thing and much more – and therefore had to Google it.  😁

    Unfortunately, you were only able to find a random guess by a random commenter on Quora.  That’s like asking your neighbor – a plumber let’s say – and then presenting his musings as some “Official Google Scientific Answer”.  😂

    At any rate, let’s examine what your “plumber” came up with, and see it if makes sense.

    Pros: Cheap and plentiful.

    I’m not sure how cheap and plentiful it is, considering that helium is very hard to come by (a point another “Quora plumber” pointed out).  But regardless, it might also be “cheap and plentiful” to run a duplicate set of power wires from point A to point B when there is already a working set doing the same thing, right?  And in this case, we must imagine that the duplicates can only carry 1/100th of the power that the originals can – so the analogy aligns with our space satellite vs balloon satellite discussion, right?  So WHY should we run a duplicate set of power lines that can’t perform anywhere close to the original ones, regardless of how cheap it might be to do so?  Your “plumber’s” first opinion is rejected as nonsensical.

    Can get really good coverage with lots of them.

    But there already IS extremely good coverage with the space satellites, right?  Opinion rejected as nonsensical.

    If one fails, others act as backup.

    The same could be said for the space satellites, right?  And since the thousands of space satellites have a VASTLY greater area of coverage, there isn’t a square inch on earth that isn’t currently covered by dozens of different satellites at the same time, right?  But if one balloon satellite with VERY LIMITED COVERAGE fails, the next closest one wouldn’t be able to cover its area anyway.  Unlike the space satellites, they aren’t hovering dozens of balloons over the same exact remote area – all offering the same service to the same people.  Opinion rejected as nonsensical.

    Easy to replace in a mere day if one is ready to launch.

    Not any easier than replacing a space satellite if one is ready to launch, right?  Besides, the ease with which a replacement could be sent for a product that is vastly less effective and unnecessary in the first place is a moot point.  Opinion rejected as nonsensical.

    Easy to update technology with the next one.

    Same goes for the space satellites.  And a lot of updates could be done wirelessly to the ones already up there.  And again, the ease with which a redundant and unnecessary product could be updated is a moot point.  Opinion rejected as nonsensical.

    Not as damaging when one crashes.

    I’ll need some evidence for this one.  How many space satellites have crashed to earth?  What is the damage caused?  How many balloon satellites?  What is the damage caused?  Opinion rejected for lack of supporting evidence.

    I won’t go through the Cons, since I’m also arguing the con position.  So after all that, we’re left with the “plumber’s” conclusion…

    Conclusion. Use both regular and balloon sats, and have your systems be able to switch between them.

    Ahh.  So then employ a completely redundant system that is 1/100th as effective as the original, just in case the original system gets completely wiped out all at once?  It is good to have backups and failsafes… but they need to be based on the threat level and the ability of the backup system to do what the original system was doing.

    Is there currently a threat to the space satellites that wouldn’t also threaten the backups?  And if so, would the few and sparsely spaced much less effective backups be able to do anything close to what the originals do on a daily basis?  If not, then we’re just back to the much less powerful duplicate power line analogy, and asking WHY even bother.

    And now that we’ve heard the opinions of your “Quora plumber”, why not go to the source again.  Google’s official reasoning was that the balloon satellites could provide internet connectivity to remote areas of the earth.

    That’s your bottom line, Proclaimer.  They (or NASA) don’t say anything about a much less powerful backup system in case all of the space satellites are taken out all at once.  They simply say the balloon satellites can provide coverage to remote regions.

    So my question to you, once again, is WHY would Loon NEED to provide coverage to remote areas of the earth when there are already thousands of space satellites beaming signals to every square inch of the earth, with many of those square inches being covered by dozens of satellites at the same time?

    I’d really like to hear YOUR answer instead of a “Quora plumber’s” opinion this time.  Thanks.

    #932538
    mikeboll64
    Blocked

    Adam:  Yes I agree with Mike on the above statement of the Priestly author who summarised his creation account in the first verse and it’s not some other earlier creation as many Christians imagine to justify their Biblical texts with the modern scientific inventions.

    That’s an accurate description of what’s going on here, and a reasonable conclusion.

    Adam:  I am posting here how a Jewish commentator is justifying God’s creation with reference to the present day scientific timelines for our universe…

    The opinion you posted is just a fancier version of your accurate description that I bolded above.  It assumes facts not in evidence (billions of years, stretching effect of an expanding universe, etc) and makes a circular argument (the Bible, understood with very particular extra-Biblical assertions, works out to 15 billion years, therefore the “science” is right that the universe is indeed 15 billion years old).

    The Bible says Adam was the first man.  Jesus said Adam was formed at the BEGINNING of creation.  The Biblical genealogies place that at about 6000 years ago.

    It’s hard to imagine that when Jesus said, “the beginning of creation”, he really meant “14.4 billion years AFTER the beginning of creation”.  Mark that out on a timeline from 14.5 billion years ago until the day that Jesus said those words…

    Timeline

    If you zoom in you can see a red line above the zero.  That would have been what Jesus was calling the BEGINNING of creation.  Does that make sense to any of you?

    #932539
    mikeboll64
    Blocked

    Gene:  Adam…….very interesting brother.

    2 Timothy 4:3-4… For the time will come when people will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear. They will turn their ears away from the truth and turn aside to myths.

    #932578
    Danny Dabbs
    Participant

    What is the freemasonic conspiracy in our christian circles?
    The freemasons are saying that there are two different Gods in the Bible.
    Yahweh vs El.
    That’s basically what they are doing Y
    But they are liars!
    Even Gadam123 spread this lie. Intentionally? I don’t know.
    Yahweh is El! (2 Samuel 22:32)
    Whether He is a Trinitarian, Binitarian or Unitarian God.
    He is the one God of the Bible.

    #932612
    mikeboll64
    Blocked

    Hi Danny.  Yes, I have gone round and round with Adam over the erroneous claims about “El” and “Yahweh” in those articles he copies and pastes.  There are also people who seriously believe that “Yahweh” in the OT sometimes refers to God, and other times to Satan.

    I just stick to what the scriptures actually teach, and do my best to refute that outside nonsense using those very scriptures.

    #932757
    Danny Dabbs
    Participant

    Hi Mike,

    There are also people who seriously believe that “Yahweh” in the OT sometimes refers to God, and other times to Satan.

    I know.
    These lying freemasons want us to commit the blasphemy
    against Yahweh’s holy spirit.
    I’m done with them.

    #932759
    mikeboll64
    Blocked

    Danny, this is on the official Freemasons site!

    Masonic Astronauts

     

    How you coming along with those 200 proofs?

    #932760
    mikeboll64
    Blocked

    Hey Proclaimer… I’m still waiting for YOUR valid explanation of why the Loon Project would be necessary when there were already thousands of satellites in space doing the very thing Loon set out to do.

    And I don’t think you ever did address the fact that NASA is the largest consumer of helium in the world.  Why do you think that would be?  Could it be that NASA’s “space satellites” are also just floating around on helium-filled balloons like Loon’s were?  If not, why the need for SO MUCH helium at NASA? 🤔

    #932761
    mikeboll64
    Blocked

    I posted this a couple of weeks ago, but didn’t get any answers…

    Screenshot (408)

     

    Please answer my question, guys.

    Danny?  Does it make sense to you that the red line by the zero is what Jesus would have called “the BEGINNING of creation”?

    Adam?  Please answer.

    Gene?  Please answer.

    Carmel?  Please answer.

    Pretender?  Please answer.

    Thanks.

    #932788
    carmel
    Participant

    Please answer my question, guys.

     

    Hi Mike,

    Danny?  Does it make sense to you that the red line by the zero is what Jesus would have called “the BEGINNING of creation”?

    Adam?  Please answer.

    Gene?  Please answer.

    Carmel?  Please answer.

    Pretender?  Please answer.

    Thanks.

     

    Me: Mike, read what Jesus said:

    Mark 10:6 But from the beginning of the creation, God made them male and female.

    IF FROM YOUR UNDERSTANDING JESUS REFERRED TO Genesis 1:3 THEN YOU ARE RIGHT! OF WHICH I HAVE EVERY RESPECT!

    BUT FROM MY UNDERSTANDING WE ARE NOT IN A POSITION TO KNOW WHEN THE BEGINNING OF CREATION OF Genesis 1:1 ACTUALLY OCCURRED, AND MYSELF I WOULD NOT ONLY AGRY ABOUT THAT FIGURE BUT EVEN THAT IT TOOK UNKNOW BILLIONS AND BILLION  OF GOD KNOWS WHAT. 

    JESUS NEVER SAID THAT GOD FROM THE CREATION OF THE WORLD MADE THEM

    MAN AND WOMAN AND THE FACT THAT HE USED THE TERM MALE AND FEMALE HE SIMPLY MADE IT CLEAR THAT

    THE MALE AND FEMALE HE WAS REFERRING TO, WAS SIMPLY

    LUCIFER! IN THE SAME WAY, ADAM WAS ON HIS CREATION!

    THE FACT THAT HE REMOVED THE FEMALE FROM WITHIN HIS HEART! AGAIN

    “THE WORD” JESUS, AS A SPIRIT! SINCE ALL BY HIM!

    NOW GOING BACK TO JESUS’WORDS, THE MALE WAS A REFERENCE TO “THE WORD” JESUS AS A SPIRIT, WHILE

    THE FEMALE WAS A REFERENCE TO THE PHYSICAL ASPECT OF LUCIFER, PRECISELY THE CARRIER OF

    “THE WORD” JESUS, AS A SPIRIT, ETERNAL LIFE WITHIN LUCIFER’S HEART HIDDEN AND UNKNOWN, THE ABODE OF GOD!

    THE PRIMORDIAL LIGHT!

    Peace and love in Jesus Christ

    #933406
    gadam123
    Participant

    The God of the Hebrew Bible

    The name “God,” “El” in Hebrew, also belongs to this Northwest Semitic literary tradition. In Ugaritic texts, the god El is creator, king, and father. In the Deir Allah literary text, El behaves in ways similar to the Old Testament’s portrait of God. El is ubiquitous in West Asia, showing up in personal names found in Tell Amarna letters, in Proto-Sinaitic Inscriptions, and in Egyptian topographic lists. “El” is one of the ways Israel addressed and understood God from an early period (Deut 33:26; Ps 68:36). Even the name “Israel,” found first in the 13th -century Merneptah Stele, displays the divine name El. Israel’s God has another name, however, “Yahweh.” Daniel Sibony calls this name “La plus grande création de la Bible hébraïque.” Yet, as Meindert Dijkstra writes, “The name and character of YHWH appeared out of the blue in the Ancient Near East.” No Yahweh appears in Ugaritic texts. Unlike Baal and El, ancient Palestine knows no Yahweh theophoric place-names.

    The Old Testament itself gives conflicting accounts of how and when Israel came to know the name Yahweh. Yahweh was God of both Israel and Judah, and that might suggest that Yahweh was known quite early. The oldest biblical text that uses the name Yahweh is probably Judg 5:13, 23, and the name’s appearance in Yahwistic names Joshua and Jonathan is also old, although no personal names found in the LB or Iron I  Levant contain the name Yahweh. Ancient Near Eastern texts from outside the Bible also attest to Yahweh being the God of Israel; the earliest of these is the Mesha Stele (840 BCE).

    According to Gen 4:26, people began to “call on the name of Yahweh” close to the origin of the world. Most scholars assign this text to the so-called Yahwist Source. By contrast, the Priestly Writer believes the name was new to Moses (Exod 6:3), or is at least aware of two conflicting accounts and attempts to reconcile them. Biblical scholars have long ignored the testimony of Exodus 6 and assumed Israel knew the name Yahweh “long before the time of Moses,” a view argued by Kittel, Delitzsch, Ewald, Wellhausen, Smend, and Kautzsch among others.

    On the other hand, Genesis 4 may not concern the use of the name Yahweh at all. It could simply be a statement about people first worshipping God, a God whom the biblical author naturally knew to be named “Yahweh.” In that case, the text says nothing about what its author thought early people called God and when. If the author of Genesis 4 meant to say that in Enosh’s time people began to address God by the Tetragrammaton, there were many easier ways to say that (as in Gen 9:20; 10:8).

    Some scholars have found the etymology of “Yahweh” relevant for the name’s (and the God’s) origin. First, we must establish that the name is, in fact, Yahweh. The Mesha Stele preserves the form identical to the Hebrew Bible, יהוה. The form Yah occurs in personal names and in words like hallelujah, but also in Exod 15:2; Isa 12:2; and Ps 68:19. These two forms, Yah and the tetragrammaton, occur together on the Khirbet Beit Lei Inscription, c. 700 BCE. The Samaria Ostraca have Yaw in personal names, a form also attested in Assyrian royal annals. Other names include the form Yahow, which also appears in various epigraphic sources such as the Elephantine texts and Murashu archive from Nippur. The correct vocalization is Yahweh, first proposed by Gilbert Génébrard OSB in 1567.

    The chapter of Exodus 3 that presents the Tetragrammaton, introduces in v 1 Moses’ “father-in-law, Jethro, the priest of Midian,” a title he is again given in Exod 18:1. Exodus 18 continues in v 9 (ESV, with the proper name Yahweh as it appears in the MT),

    9 And Jethro rejoiced for all the good that Yahweh had done to Israel, in that he had
    delivered them out of the hand of the Egyptians.
    10 Jethro said, “Blessed be Yahweh, who has delivered you out of the hand of the Egyptians and out of the hand of Pharaoh and has delivered the people from under the hand of the Egyptians. 11 Now I know that Yahweh is greater than all gods, because in this affair they dealt arrogantly with the people.” 12 And Jethro, Moses’ father-in-law, brought a burnt offering and sacrifices to God.

    The plain sense is that the priesthood of Jethro is a priesthood of Yahweh. Admittedly, the text only ever calls him a priest of God (El), but Yahweh is the name The Midianite (Kenite) Hypothesis used in vv 9–11. The author might envision Jethro as a priest of some other god(s) and intend that v 11 reflect a realization that Yahweh is greater than those other gods, and that is, in fact, how Judaism has traditionally interpreted the passage. Yet as Morgenstern wrote, “It is not the cry of a hiterhto half-convinced and hesitating convert to a new faith, but rather the exultant shout of an old and loyal worshiper and champion of Yahweh.” Some Jewish traditions noted rightly that the “conversion” interpretation would require a mental “conversion” before v 9, only voiced in v 11, as well as the awkward fact of Moses’  marriage into a non-Yahwistic family. Before this chapter, Jethro (and by extension, his daughter Zipporah) is never presented as a polytheist or “pagan” of any sort. Moreover, the fact that it is Jethro who makes the offering in v 12 (stated even stronger in the Syriac, Targumim, and Vulgate, where he not only “brings” it but also burns it) requires that his priesthood has at a minimum somehow automatically transferred. The more natural interpretation is that the author believes Jethro’s was always a priesthood of Yahweh. Note that Jethro knows the name “Yahweh” in v 10 before Moses has even told him about it. The strength of this reading caused some rabbinic traditions to say that Jethro was such a great Yahwistic saint that when he arrived at the Israelite camp, even the Shekinah went out to meet him (Mekhilta 1c; Midrash Tanhuma Yitro, 6).

    And Exodus 3:1 calls the father-in-law of Moses by the name Jethro and states that he was a Midianite. Num 10:29, however, refers to Hobab son of Reuel, stating that either Hobab or Reuel is Moses’ Midianite father-in-law, although it is not clear which. That Hobab is to guide Israel through the wilderness suggests he is meant to be the younger man, and Reuel is the father, although Haupt argued that “Hobab” was the Edomite word for “father-in-law.” Exod 2:18 calls Moses’ father-in-law Reuel, while in Judg 4:11, Hobab is the father-in-law. In Judges 4, however, Hobab is a Kenite, as is the unnamed father-in-law in Judg 1:16, named Hobab in the Septuagint. Reuel is called a priest in Exod 2:18, just as Jethro is.

    These names allow us to make connections in other texts, shedding more light on the intended ethnicity of Moses’ father-in-law. Genesis 36:4 has a son of Esau named Reuel, the half-brother of Eliphaz father of Amalek (by a Horite woman named Timna). Benno Jacob believed this was the same Reuel and that
    he was an Edomite who had moved to Midian. In any case, the text is linking Midianites with Edomites and with Amalekites (as does 1 Samuel 14:35; 15:5–7; 27:5–11, which also includes Jerahmeel[ites]). Amalekites ally with Midianites in Judges 6 and 7.

    The Song of Deborah, to which will shall return, makes a fascinating connection between Israel and Amalek. Verse 14 reads, “From Ephraim is their ancestry, in Amalek, following you, Benjamin, with your kin.” The translation here is not in question. This might mean some of the Ephraimites (and Benjaminites ?) lived among Amalekites; it is hard to see how it could mean that Amalekites had been absorbed into Ephraim or that there was an Amalekite enclave in Ephraim. It could simply preserve the memory of some past defeat of Amalekites on a mountain of Ephraim, historical or otherwise, but it might also have something to do with Amalekites lurking in the background of Israel’s identity.

    Jethro is priest of Midian, and other texts associate Midian with Yahweh and with Israel’s early identity. The “Cushan” in this passage is often used to identify the “Cush” of Moses’ “Cushite” wife in Numbers 12 as another name for Midian and not Ethiopia, thereby confirming the rabbinic view that Moses had only one wife: Zipporah the Midianite was that wife, and there was no second, Ethiopian wife. Exod 18:2 states that Moses had sent Zipporah away, i. e., divorced her. As scholar after scholar has noted, the biblical text’s significant antipathy toward Midian (e.g., Num 25:6–8, 17; 31; Judges 6–7; and Edom and Amalek) supports the historicity of a Midianite connection at an early period and a religious connection at that. The connection is reiterated in three separate places: Exodus; Numbers 10; and Judges 1 and 4. In the core traditions of the Exodus narrative, as Kenton Sparks writes, “The Midianites prove crucial to the very survival of Moses and his mission”: as guides in the desert, in the subdivision of society, and potentially as an adjunct to the Israelite community although Jethro declines the invitation. Moreover, the oldest traditions say the name “Yahweh” was learned in Midian. The Kenites are always portrayed as Yahwistic (e.g., Judg 4:17; 5:24; 1 Sam 15:6; 27:10; 30:29).  They are connected with the Rechabites, whose zeal for Yahwism was renowned, untouched by “Canaanite cults” – precisely the “Ugarit-free” I am after in this study, and who abstained from alcohol. The nature of the Kenites expands when they are connected with Cain. The spelling is identical, and in fact the word translated “Kenite(s)” in Num 24:22 and Judg 4:11 is simply “Cain.” The only problem would be that the line of Cain ought to have been exterminated in the Flood, although such issues are often overlooked in the Hebrew Bible.

    The origins of the name Yahweh in Midian, a Midian / Kenite who worships Yahweh before the Exodus, both early traditions, and the identity of the ethnic groups involved as nomadic smiths, led over a century ago to the so-called Kenite Hypothesis. Often the poetic passages ascribing “southern origins” to Yahweh himself, to be discussed below, were allied to the theory. In its usual form, a less literal version viewed Yahweh as originally the god of the Kenites (or Midianites), from whom Israel adopted both the divine name and some usually-undefined theology. Zeal for Yahweh passed down, then, from the Kenites to their offspring the Rechabites. Numbers 25 suggests an important sanctuary at Baal Peor that was a “place of covenanting involving Simeonite Israelites, Midianites, and Moabites,” at a time at the end of the Late Bronze Age when “we find several tribes – Kenites, Kenizzites, Calebites, Jerahmeelites, Judahites, Simeonites and Levites – moving into the northern Sinai and the Negev.” I question our ability to assess the historicity of a shrine at Baal Peor, of such migrations, even of the existence of actual tribes called “Calebites” or “Jerahmeelites.” Moreover, although Cain is condemned to wandering, it is Abel who is the shepherd, Cain the crop farmer, and Cain’s descendants are the founders of the first cities.

    Metallurgy is one of the earliest associations with the Kenites. The Exodus 18 text analyzed above is either an early independent tradition or E, if there is such a thing.The tradition in 1 Samuel 30 that the Kenites are nomadic may be early. The Kenites-Amalekite connection is also old; 1 Samuel 15 is “part of the oldest traditions,” where Saul is not rejected but rebuked. 1 Samuel 27 is pre-Deutero-nomistic, the entire chapter lacking Deuteronomistic language. Caleb’s story in Numbers 13 is from the so-called Yahwist, but preserving some earlier traditions. Caleb’s account in Joshua 14 is the work of the Deuteronomistic Historian, but using earlier material since it seems to be a free-floating fragment only placed here as the least problematic locus. Noting that Judges 6–8 is already presupposed by Isa 9:4, the connection of Midianites and Amalekites in Judges 6 and 7 is pre-DtrH. The Midianite-Kenite connection, the nomadic status of Midianites, the ethnic identity of Caleb as Kenite / Kenizzite, and the story of the Rechabites, are all late Pre-Exilic memorats. The remaining memorats are Post-Exilic.

    This means that the Rechabites are probably irrelevant to this discussion. Their connection to the clans of Moses’ father-in-law is late. I have not here sorted out Midianites vs. Kenites, to determine if one or the other is the non-Israelite Yahwists’ primary identification. This is because, as we have seen, both traditions are equally early. It is Midian as early as Judges 6, Habakkuk 3, and the early strata of Exodus. Kenites appear similarly as early as the Oracles of Balaam, and again in early strata of Exodus. I prefer to see these as two terms for the same people, with Midian slowly dropping out and, ultimately, Chronicles making the Kenites part of Judah. This Traditions History shows that at least as early as, say, 700 BCE, Israelite thinkers had a tradition that there were non-Israelite Yahweh-worshippers in the region just to the north and northeast of the Gulf of Aqaba—pastoralists, smiths, and musicians known as Kenites or Midianites (related to Amalek)—and that Yahweh in name at least entered Israel through their influence.

    Southern Origins of Yahweh in the Bible

    Scholars have long correlated Biblical texts, theophanies of God where the symbolic matrix is not (or primarily not) God coming on the clouds in rain and thunder but coming from the deserts of the South.

    Deut 33:2. The text reads,

    He said, “Yahweh came from Sinai
    And dawned on him from Seir
    He shone  forth from Mount Paran
    And went from his peak sanctuary                                                                                                        From his southland mountain slopes for them.

    This passage is a poem of five trilexic stichs. The stichs list five locations from which God has come: Sinai, Seir, Paran, “peak sanctuary,” and the mountain slopes. These locations are in parallel, but not identical, as we shall see. I will also argue that only in this variant is Sinai one of the places from which God comes.
    Since Paran is also in Habakkuk 3, Teman in Habakkuk 3 and Zechariah 9, and Seir in Judges 5, Sinai may have been added here at an early point to make the poem more “orthodox.” After all, Sinai breaks the “two-and-two” pattern. Thus, v 2b could have been added, perhaps by the Deuteronomistic Historian, who also added Moses in v 4. This would then leave a perfect pair of parallels. Seir can be synonymous with Edom, as it is in Ezekiel 35. While Gen 36:8–9 equates Edom with Seir, v 20 identifies Seir as a Horite who lived earlier than the time of Esau. Gen 14:6 and Josh 15:1–4, however, consider Seir to include that portion of Edom that is west of the Arabah, and this is the general usage, although Nathan MacDonald has unpacked variations. Seir can also refer to a people who live in this region, although this seems to be unique to Priestly-associated writings (Gen 36:20–21; 2 Chron 25:11, 14). The phrase “Mount Seir” occurs in Gen 36:8–9; Deut 1:2; and Josh 24:4, and refers to a range in Seir.305 The name Seir may derive from “hairy.” This could mean “forested” (Gen 27:11, 23; Lev 13:3; Isa 7:2; Ezek 16:7; Zech 13:4; Cant 4:4; Job 4:15), but should not determine where it is to be located, since it could equally refer to Esau’s personal appearance.

    Paran—the only term here with “mountain” attached — overlaps with Edom and abuts the Wilderness of Zin between Kadesh and Edom (1 Kgs 11:17–18). It is to Paran that Hagar and Ishmael flee in Gen 21:21, where, according to the book of Jubilees, they were later joined by the sons of Keturah (20:12–13). Knauf ’s philological equation of Paran with Wadi Feiran within the Sinai Peninsula is linguistically impossible. Moreover, this passage is not about Mount Sinai at all, or at least not about the revelation of the Law at Sinai. As we shall see, it is the only variant that mentions Sinai; the rest are clear in referring to Israel’s southeast, not southwest. In any case, Yahweh does not come from Sinai in Exodus, he comes to Sinai, to deliver the Law (Exod 19:18–20).

    Judg 5:4–5

    4 Yahweh, when you went out from Seir
    When you marched from the territory of Edom
    The earth shook, and also the heavens, they dripped
    The clouds dripped water
    5 The mountains trembled
    Before Yahweh, the One of Sinai
    Before Yahweh, the God of Israel

    The Song of Deborah “presents a complex interplay of various poems, perhaps not originally related to each other,” although the narrative association with Kenites is notable. At some point in the song’s development, a point prior to the final form of the Song, these verses belong together as one of the variants of the RMS. At an earlier point, however, vv 4 and 5 do not belong together. They display two different poetic schemes. Verse 4 consists of trilexic stichs, the same as vv 26 and 29, while v 5 has tetralexic stichs like vv 23, 26b, and 28. Those scholars of the last century who removed v 5b as a gloss were correct about the fact that it does not belong, but incorrect in that it does not belong only at one level; in later forms of the Song, it does belong.

    God marched from the south is the basic theme. This requires that the integer God is a being that moves on earth. That notion is ubiquitous in those parts of the Hebrew Bible that readily anthropomorphize God,  parts such as the so-called Yahwist Source. More intriguingly, God has at one time resided in the south, for him to be able to come from there. I do not think this is about Sinai. First, no tradition has God dwelling on Mount Sinai. The closest is two places (Exod 3:1, 1 Kgs 19:8) that refer to Mount Horeb as the “Mountain of God.” Exodus 3:5 says the ground there is holy. Exodus 24 has Moses “come up to meet the Lord.” But both the Yahwist and Priestly layers understand this to mean that God, too, has to arrive at Sinai from somewhere else, in both cases from above, the heavens. Thus Exod 19:11 (J) has, “the Lord will come down upon Mount Sinai in the sight of all the people,” and Exod 24:16 (P) has, “the glory of the Lord settled on Mount Sinai.” Moreover, as we have seen, the theophanic variants we have been examining are not about the Sinai experience at all.

    This theme means “The South” needs to reckoned with as itself a divine abode. When God dwells on earth in the Hebrew Bible, it is typically in Zion, including in Psalm 68, in vv 17–18 (also Ps 9:11; Joel 3:17–21; cf. Jubilees 7:11–12). Here it is in Teman, Seir, Edom. From the south, Yahweh has approached Israel; he is not marching past Israel or to some other location. It is, therefore, a horizontal theophany. The south is not, therefore, a temple or shrine, not a place where God is meant to be worshipped or where he can be encountered. It is instead comparable to the heavens, or comparatively speaking, Mount Zaphon in Ugaritic mythology or the Greek Mount Olympus.

    Deuteronomy 33 may have added Sinai from other biblical texts, localizing the tradition. It shows a tradition that has been elaborated. Zechariah 9 seems to be generalizing, and its changing the motif to future tense causes it to lose much of its folkloric quality; both are signs of the theme developing. Habakkuk 3 seems to have lost members, as does Psalm 68, which has borrowed incorrectly from Judges 5. Edom in Judges 5 is unlikely to have been added, given the Hebrew Bible’s general abhorrence of Edom;417 by the 8 th century, Edom was the archetypical villain, second only to Babylon in excoriation. We might, therefore, consider the element Edom as lost in the other variants. On the other hand, Edom is a familiar term in the Hebrew Bible; Paran, Seir, and Teman are not. Replacing rare words is a typical movement in the development of folklore. Since Paran, Seir, and Teman occur in multiple variants while Edom, Sinai, and the desert do not, the more vague references to the south are probably primary. That several of the early translations of the variants (Latin, Syriac, Barberini Greek) used “from the south”
    instead of “Teman” suggests they already interpreted the theme to be an image of a deity who merely comes from the south as his place of origin.

    I think there are two things that underlie the registers found in these variants. I have elsewhere considered the extent to which the motifs preserved in these variants function as mythic language, referring not only to a historical south but also to the mythic south. But regardless of that, I think there is something historic behind them, that “history per se is inscribed in a non-historical time” in these variants. When I put these variants together with a tradition going back to at least 700 BCE that there were non-Israelite Yahweh-worshippers north and east of the Gulf of Aqaba and that Yahweh in name at least entered Israel through their influence, it suggests a historical reality. When we add the fact that, Egyptian sources of 1300 BCE refer to a people they call the “Shasu of Yahweh” in precisely the same region—regardless of whether Yahweh here is a place name or a divine name—that suggestion is strengthened. In the meantime, the strength of the 8th century datum point for Yahweh of the South rests not only on the biblical evidence, but as well on inscriptions from the site of Kuntillet Ajrud…(taken from the book “Yahweh Origin of a Desert God by Robert D Miller II)

    #933581
    gadam123
    Participant

    Continued…..

    Yahweh of Teman

    The title “Yahweh of Teman” is found outside the Old Testament at Kuntillet Ajrud, and this adds historical weight to the idea that Yahweh with the South were associated early on. Kuntillet ʿAjrud (AKA Horvat Teman) is a small, one-period site situated between the southern Negev and the eastern Sinai peninsula. Its occupation dates back to the late 9 th / early 8th century (BCE), according to its ceramics, paleography, and carbon-14 dating, although Schniedewind has recently outlined a good argument
    that some activity at the site goes back to the 10 th century. It appears to have been a minor caravan stop with attached religious shrines. In this latter function, the discovery of references to Yahweh at the site have rightly drawn the attention of historians of Israelite Religion. The item which has received the most attention is a pithos depicting three humanoid figures with an accompanying Hebrew inscription, “I bless you by (or to) Yahweh of Samaria and his A / asherah.” But there are also several references to “Yahweh of Teman.”

    Most of the occurrences of Yahweh at Kuntillet Ajrud are to the name on its own (e.g., Stone inscriptions 1.2, Pithos A 3.1; Wall Plaster 4.2). “Yahweh of Teman,” however, is found in several inscriptions. Twice it  is written on Pithos B, at 3.6 and at 3.9, the second with the definite article, “Yahweh of the Teman.” This might translate as “Yahweh of the South,” or Teman may be treated as requiring a definite article, similar to “the Negev,” “the Carmel,” or “the Sharon.” Twice, Asherah is associated with Yahweh of Teman: “I have blessed you by Yahweh of Teman and Asherata [sic],” Inscription D on Pithos B, and “May he
    bless you by Yahweh of Teman and Asherah,” Inscription F on Pithos B. In all these cases, Teman is written defectively. In Inscription G on Wall Plaster 4.1.1, Yahweh of Teman is written with plene spelling: “Recount [praises] to Yahweh of Teman and Asherah. Yahweh of the South did good…set the vine…Yahweh of the South (or of the Teman) has ….” The main debate is whether Yahweh of Teman, Yahweh of Samaria—which also occurs at Kuntillet Ajrud, and whatever other Yahwehs there might be are different deities or whether they are different manifestations of the same deity.

    Kenites at Kuntillet Ajrud

    Kuntillet Ajrud has another important link to the biblical traditions about Yahweh’s southern origins. Line 7 of Wall Plaster 4.3 reads “Cain (Heb. קין) destroyed a field and lofty mountains.” This was written on the north doorjamb of the foyer to the “Bench Room” of Building A, the most clearly cultic structure of the site. Within Building A, the Bench Room served ritual functions, as it produced decorative fragments of Pithos A, woodwork pieces, exotica like fresh- and salt-water fish bones and shells, chalices, and fragments of white-plaster with remnants of Kenites at Kuntillet Ajrud inscriptions including Wall Plaster 4.1.30 Inscription 4.3 is the only wall inscription found in situ, 1.2 m above the floor.

    The “translation” by Nadav Naʿaman of 2011 must be addressed, as this translation has been embraced by Israel Finkelstein and Thomas Römer. Naʿaman translates the entire inscription, producing a variant of the Exodus narrative. Most of the letters Naʿaman reads cannot be seen on the inscription, and in the few cases where letters are visible, Naʿaman regularly departs from the readings given by the initial decipherment of Aḥituv and Eshel. One could just as easily translate the line as “The Kenite(s) destroyed a field” or “The Kenite(s) devastated the territory” (cf. Gen 14:7; 32:4; 36:35; Hos 12:13). The final clause, מרמהרמ, could be translated either “lofty mountains” or “treachery,” reconstructing perhaps a following בידו. The original editors of the inscription do suggest a

    connection to the Kenites, and cite the Oracle of Balaam in Num 24:21, assigning the Kenites a “nest in the rock,” as well as Jer 49:16’s oracle against the
    Edomites who “live in the clefts of the rock, who hold the height of the hill…[who] make your nest as high as the eagle’s.” Whether the translation is Cain or Kenites, in either case this inscription is important. The name Cain is unknown outside of Cain son of Adam and where it means Kenites.

    So the Cain / Kenite inscription is situated at the entry to the Bench Room of this religious building. Another wall inscription at this location reads as follows:

    And when God shone forth on r[
    And mountains melted
    And peaks were crushed
    ———————————
    To bless the Lord on the day of batt[le
    To the name of God on the day of batt[le

    “The Lord” and “God” are preferable to “Baal” and “El,” names that are extremely rare in Phoenician in comparison to the widespread usage of both אל and בעל with Yahweh in Iron II inscriptions. This inscription features many of the motifs of the variants discussed in Chapter One. “Mountains disintegrating” from Judg 5:5 and Hab 3:6 is here, as is the shining forth of God from Deut 33:2 and Hab 3:4, using precisely the same verb zrḫ .

    Although Judah may have originally built the site, for most of its use the territory surrounding Kuntillet Ajrud belonged to the Northern Kingdom. Axelsson suggests the emphasis on Yahweh coming from the South in Northern Kingdom traditions, including Elijah’s journey to Mount Horeb, is due to the
    political inaccessibility of Jerusalem and Zion having displaced the South in Judah—the exact opposite of Pfeiffer’s argument. However, although Kuntillet Ajrud may have politically been Israel, as has been mentioned above, the pottery is Judahite, and the orthography mixed. On pithoi, the short yaw in theophoric personal names displays the Israelian orthography, while the Phoenician script on the wall plasters is Judahite orthography. The latter script would have a formal, prestige status, and it is in this script that the Cain / Kenite inscription appears.

    One entered the Bench Room shrine past inscriptions that refer to Yahweh of Teman, well-attested throughout Kuntillet Ajrud, the shaking of mountains, the shining forth of God, and Cain or the Kenites. If we had the entirety of the Cain / Kenite inscription, assuredly much more would be added to what it means that Yahweh comes from the South, a tradition the site’s inscriptions further support. The divine name Yahweh appears several times among peoples who were not Israelites. Most of these occurrences post-date Israelite usage, and so tell us little about the origin of Yahweh, southern or otherwise, but they are rarely if ever listed together in contemporary scholarship….(taken from the book “Yahweh Origin of a Desert God by Robert D Miller II)

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