El Shaddai, Shamash & The Goddess Asherah

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"El Shaddai (Hebrew: אל שדי‎, IPA: [el ʃadːaj]) is one of the Judaic names of God, with its etymology coming from the influence of the Ugaritic religion ( Ugaritic religion was polytheistic, and in some cases monolatristic.)…upon modern Judaism……known in Ugarit as 'ilhm (=Elohim) or the children of El…. Ugarit: the ruined city of Ugarit (modern Ras Shamra), Syria…"…..http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/El_Shaddai

"The Sumerians arrived in Mesopotamia ca. 3500, but we don't know where they came from ("origins remain unclear" Spiel. 5th ed. 8). Their language is neither Indo-European nor Semitic nor Hamitic! They probably originate from central Asia by way of Iran (Kramer, 33)."….http://socsci.gulfcoast.edu/rbaldwin/mesopotamia.htm

"Another theory is that Shaddai is a derivation of a Semitic stem that appears in the Akkadian shadû ("mountain") and shaddā`û or shaddû`a ("mountain-dweller"), one of the names of Amurru. This theory was popularized by W. F. Albright but was somewhat weakened when it was noticed that the doubling of the medial d is first documented only in the Neo-Assyrian period. However, the doubling in Hebrew might possibly be secondary. According to this theory, God is seen as inhabiting a mythical holy mountain, a concept not unknown in ancient West Asian mythology (see El), and also evident in the Syriac Christian writings of Ephrem the Syrian, who places Eden on an inaccessible mountaintop."…..http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/El_Shaddai

"El is a generic word for God that could be used for any God including Baal, Moloch, or Yahweh……In the Canaanite religion, or Levantine religion as a whole, El or Il was a god also known as the Father of humankind and all creatures, and the husband of the Goddess Asherah as recorded in the clay tablets of Ugarit (modern Ra′s Shamrā—Arabic: رأس شمرا‎, Syria). The bull was symbolic to El and his son Baʻal Hadad, and they both wore bull horns on their headdress. He may have been a desert god at some point, as the myths say that he had two wives and built a sanctuary with them and his new children in the desert. El had fathered many gods, but most important were Hadad, Yam, and Mot."….http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/El_(deity)

"ASHERAH: THE TREE OF LIFE…..In the Kuntillet 'Arjud and Khirbet el-Kom inscriptions, Asherah is named with Yahweh -- probably as his consort. In Canaanite myth, Asherah (Ug. Athirat) was the consort of El, the creator god, and she begat the seventy lesser gods, the sons of El. Asherah became Yahweh's consort through an identification of El with Yahweh (seen throughout the OT). In Canaanite texts, Asherah is called the "Mother of All" and one of her titles was qnyt 'ilm "Creator of the Gods". It is interesting that qnh is an unusual word in Hebrew for "create" as it usually means "acquire" (El, in contrast, was called bny bnwt "Creator of Created Things" in the Ugaritic texts). The notion of Eve as a creator goddess also appears in muted form in Genesis 3:20, 4:1 where Eve is called "the mother of all living" and Eve says after the birth of Cain, "I have created (qnh) a man with the help of Yahweh," employing the same verb as applied to Asherah in the Ugaritic texts. The latter quote is also very similar to a statement regarding the Akkadian creator goddess Aruru (= Sumerian Ninhursag): Aruru zi-ir a-mi-lu-ti it-ti-shu ib-ta-nu "Aruru, with the help of [Marduk], created the seed of mankind" (KIB, vi. I, 40). Another clue that Eve's identity originally was not as it is given in the story can be found in the name: Hebrew chwwh, being related to Aramaic chwyh and Phoenician chwt "snake". As we shall soon see, Chawat appears in a Phoenician inscription as one of the names of Elat "Goddess", that is, Asherah."…http://www.jehovahs-witness.net/watchtower/bible/73244/1/The-Tree-of-Life-Asherah-and-Her-Snakes#.Uqp1jaVURSU

"According to Exodus 6:2, 3, Shaddai (שַׁדַּי) is the name by which God was known to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. The name Shaddai is again used as a name of God later in the Book of Job….Shaddai meaning destroyer….The root word "shadad" (שדד) means "to overpower" or "to destroy". This would give Shaddai the meaning of "destroyer", representing one of the aspects of God, and in this context it is essentially an epithet. The meaning of Shaddai may go back to the original sense of "shadad" which was "to be strong" akin to Arabic "shadiid" (شديد) "strong". The termination "ai", typically signifying the first person possessive plural, functions as a pluralis excellentiae like other theonyms of the Hebrew God Elohim and Adonai. The possessive quality of the termination had lost its sense and become the lexical form of both Shaddai and Adonai, similar to how the French word Monsieur changed from meaning "my lord" to being an honorific title."….…..http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/El_Shaddai

"…Abraham was Summarian and that one of the six Hebraic words for God is "El Shaddai", that the name of the nation founded by Abraham is IsraEl, and that the names of the archangels are MichaEL, GabriEl, RaphaEl, and AzraEl….Elohim is a formation from eloah, the latter being an expanded form of the Northwest Semitic noun il (אֵל, ʾēl). It is usually translated as "God" in the Hebrew Bible, referring with singular verbs both to the one God of Israel, and also in a few examples to other singular pagan deities."…http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Archangel

"El Shaddai (Hebrew: אל שדי‎, IPA: [el ʃadːaj]) is one of the Judaic names of God, with its etymology coming from the influence of the Ugaritic religion upon modern Judaism. Shaddai was one of the many Gods in Canaanite religion. El Shaddai is conventionally translated as God Almighty. While the translation of El as "god" in Ugarit/Canaanite language is straightforward, the literal meaning of Shaddai is the subject of debate."….…..http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/El_Shaddai

"… Athirat/Asherah (Ugaritic: : aṯrt) with an aleph or glottal stop consonant א and `Ashtart/`Ashtoreth (Ugaritic: : ʿṯtrt) with an `ayin or voiced pharyngeal consonant ע), indicating the lack of any plausible etymological connection between the names. She is also called Elat (Ugaritic: : ilt) ("Goddess", the feminine form of El; compare Allat) and Qodesh, 'holiness' (Ugaritic: : qdš). Athirat in Akkadian texts appears as Ashratum (Antu), the wife of Anu, the God of Heaven. In contrast, Ashtart is believed to be linked to the Mesopotamian goddess Ishtar who is sometimes portrayed as the daughter of Anu while in Ugaritic myth, Ashtart is one of the daughters of El, the West Semitic counterpart of Anu….Among the Hittites this goddess appears as Asherdu(s) or Asertu(s), the consort of Elkunirsa ("El the Creator of Earth") and mother of either 77 or 88 sons."….http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asherah

"Harriet Lutzky, Adjunct Assistant Professor of Psychology at John Jay College, City University of New York, has presented evidence that Shaddai was an attribute of a Semitic goddess, linking the epithet Shaddai with the Hebrew šad meaning "breast", giving the meaning "the one of the Breast", as Asherah at Ugarit is "the one of the Womb". A similar theory proposed by Albright is that the name Shaddai is connected to shadayim, the Hebrew word for "breasts"….…..http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/El_Shaddai

"If this theory is correct then the term El Shaddai is an epithet that alludes to the primary aspects of the Abrahamic God as the solitary being who creates, sustains, changes, and destroys the universe and all that is within it. Interestingly enough when the epithet El Shaddai is considered with YHWH (the proper name of the God of Israel, derived from the root word "howa" meaning to exist or come into being, and meaning literally the "cause of all existence" or "the one whose existence is absolute"), they show a surprising correlation to the concept of the Trimurti the triune Godhead in Hinduism consisting of Brahman (the cause of reality and existence), Vishnu (the creator and sustainer), and Shiva (the changer and destroyer)."……..http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/El_Shaddai

"Shaddai as a toponym……The term may mean "God of the mountains," referring to the Mesopotamian divine mountain…..The term was one of the patriarchal names for the tribal god of the Mesopotamians. In Exodus 6:3, El Shaddai is identified explicitly with the God of Abraham and with YHWH. The term appears chiefly in the Torah. This could also refer to the Israelite camp's stay at Mount Sinai where God gave Moses the Ten Commandments…….Shaddai was a late Bronze Age Amorite city on the banks of the Euphrates river, in northern Syria. The site of its ruin-mound is called Tel eth-Thadyen: "Thadyen" being the modern Arabic rendering of the original West Semitic "Shaddai." It has been conjectured that El Shaddai was therefore the "God of Shaddai" and associated in tradition with Abraham, and the inclusion of the Abrahamic stories into the Hebrew Bible may have brought the northern name with them."….…..http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/El_Shaddai

"Queen of Heaven.....Asherah, The Lion Lady.....These days a naked lady holding a snake and riding a lion is not the first image which comes to mind when the word “holy” is spoken. However, that is exactly the title of the goddess at the center of the picture above.... She is labeled Qadesh (Qudshu), which means “the Holy One.” Who is she? Some say an as yet unknown deity whose name is Qadesh..... Astarte (Ashtart, biblical Ashtoreth), the western variant of Babylonian Ishtar, goddess of the planet Venus (a.k.a. the Morning and Evening Star) and the Goddess of Love and War. This goddess was associated with a lion there. But more likely she is Asherah, the Mother Goddess, who is called in some written documents the Qadesh and also is frequently given the title the Lion Lady."….http://thequeenofheaven.wordpress.com/2010/11/16/asherah-part-iii-the-lion-lady/

"Most religions have attempted to build their sanctuaries on prominent heights to be visible to all the faithful. Since no such natural heights were available in the flat flood plains of ancient Mesopotamia (modern Iraq), ancient priests and kings determined to build ziggurats (Akkadian “ziqqurratu”), artificial square or rectangular stepped temple platforms….Functionally, temples were placed on raised platforms to give them prominence over other buildings in a city and to allow more people to watch the services performed at the temple. Symbolically, however, the ziggurat represents the cosmic mountain on which God or the gods dwell. The priest’s ascent up the stairway to the temple at the top of the ziggurat represents the ascent to heaven. The great ziggurat at Khorsabad, for example, had seven different stages, each painted a different color, representing the heavenly spheres of the five known planets and the moon and sun……http://www.deseretnews.com

"Yahweh…The King James Version and many older translations of the Christian Bible transliterate Yahweh as Jehovah…. (/ˈjɑːweɪ/ or /ˈjɑːhweɪ/; Hebrew: יהוה‎), was the national god of the Iron Age kingdoms of Israel and Judah. The name probably originated as an epithet of the god El, head of the Bronze Age Canaanite pantheon ("El who is present, who makes himself manifest"), and appears to have been unique to Israel and Judah, although a god Yahweh may have been worshiped south of the Dead Sea at least three centuries before the emergence of Israel (the Kenite hypothesis)….In the oldest biblical literature (12th–11th centuries BCE) Yahweh is a typical ancient Near Eastern "divine warrior" who leads the heavenly army against Israel's enemies; he and Israel are bound by a covenant (a feature unique in ancient Near Eastern religion) under which Yahweh will protect Israel, and Israel in turn will not worship other gods."….http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yahweh

"Inanna (/ɪˈnænə/ or /ɪˈnɑːnə/; Cuneiform: DINGIRINANNA DMUŠ3; Sumerian: Inanna; Akkadian: Ištar; Unicode: U+12239) is the Sumerian goddess of sexual love, fertility, and warfare…..This myth depicts Inanna's confrontation with and ultimate destruction of Mount Ebih (Jebel Makhul, near modern-day Shaikh Ibrahim, Iraq), which has refused to recognize her superiority…..She petitions to the god An to allow her to destroy the mountain. An refuses, but Inanna proceeds to attack and destroy the mountain regardless, utterly annihilating it and leaving sad destruction in her wake. In the conclusion of the myth, she tells Ebih why she attacked it."….

"A bilingual inscription from Palmyra (KAI. 11, p. 43; KAI 129) dated to the 1st century equates Ēl-Creator-of-the-Earth with the Greek god Poseidon. Going back to the 8th century BCE the bilingual inscription (KAI 26) at Karatepe in the Taurus Mountains equates Ēl-Creator-of-the-Earth to Luwian hieroglyphs read as da-a-ś, this being the Luwian form of the name of the Babylonian water god Ea, lord of the abyss of water under the earth. (This inscription lists Ēl in second place in the local pantheon, following Ba`al Shamîm and preceding the Eternal Sun.)"….http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/El_(deity)

"Shamash (Akkadian Šamaš "Sun"), was a native Mesopotamian deity and the sun god in the Akkadian, Assyrian and Babylonian pantheons. Shamash was the god of justice in Babylonia and Assyria, corresponding to Sumerian Utu. Akkadian šamaš is cognate to Syriac …šemša or šimšu….. Hebrew שֶׁמֶשׁ šemeš and …..Arabic شمس šams."….http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shamash

Mount Sinai....."In the Judeo-Christian region of the Middle East there are four primary sacred mountains: Mt Ararat in eastern Turkey, the traditional landing place of Noah's ark; Mt. Sinai in the Sinai peninsula, the peak where Moses received the Ten Commandments; Mt. Moriah or Mt. Zion in Israel, where lies the city of Jerusalem and the Temple of Solomon; and Mt. Tabor in Israel, the site of the transfiguration of Jesus. Mt. Sinai, also called Mt. Horeb and Jebel Musa (the 'Mountain of Moses') is the center of a greatly venerated pilgrimage destination that includes the Monastery of St. Catherine and the Burning Bush, Elijah's Plateau, and the Plain of ar-Raaha."

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Email....okarresearch@gmail.com

John Hopkins.....Northern New Mexico….December 2013

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