Analogies and Conjectures
The Name of God
Abstract
© Dr M D Magee
Contents Updated: Monday, November 13, 2000
The Etymology of God’s Names
The name Jesus is cognate with YHWH. It is not the personal name of an historical being but a title. Thomas Inman (Ancient Pagan and Modern Christian Symbolism) says of “YHWH”:
As the first letter may represent i, ja, ya, or e, and the third u, v, or o, whilst the second and fourth are the soft h, one may read the word Jhuh,… Jehu,… Yahu,… Jeho,… Ehoh, analogous to the Evoe or Euce associated with Bacchus; or Jaho, analogous to JAO of the Gnostics. The Greek Fathers gave the word as equivalent to yave, yach, yeho and iao.
Alvin Boyd Kuhn, in a lecture 100 years ago, explained that Jesus and Jehovah derive from the two letters—consonants not vowels—I (Yeh) and O (oo), which in the beginning of writing symbolized the two elements, spirit and matter, male and female, into which the primal One Life bifurcated. The I symbolises a phallus, the male or spirit, and the O symbolises the vagina or womb, the female or material universe. Together they represented the biune male-female deity, Yeho. We have, then, the letters IO.
The invention of written vowels was a great discovery which the priests kept secret for a long time just as they had kept writing secret. The name of god was also a secret never to be pronounced except by those authorised—the priests—on solemn occasions. So the expression of God’s name in writing seems to have been rendered apparently unpronounceable by writing it as the set of vowel sounds discovered and currently expressed in symbolic form. The words actually were pronounceable because, paradoxically, some of the vowel symbols were pronounced as consonants.
Vowels never remain fixed. As the vowels changed, in ancient languages, expression of the different pronunciations of the sacred name caused it to be rendered as IO, IA, IE, or IU. All these forms are found. Meanwhile, when the symbol I began to be used as a pure vowel, it was replaced as a consonant by J (as it is in Latin), so that we find the names JO, JA, JE and JU.
That the priests were linking their secret discovery of the alphabet and writing with the gods is suggested by the use of the “Word” or “Logos” as the name of the Son. When the male and female which emerged from the Primal Creation had given birth to the Son or Logos, the first trinity was formed and the written name of the threefold god was expressed as three letters yielding names like IAO, JAH, IEO, JEU, ZUE. Observation of another vowel sound brought the number to four matching the four cardinal points, the square of four dimensions, and the four elements, so the holy name was spelled variously as IEOU, JOVE, ZEUS, JEVE, DIOS, (TH)EOS, HUHI, IHUH and others.
Finally, the early priestly linguistic discoveries were brought to a halt with the agreement that five vowel sounds sufficed. Thus we got IEOUA, pronounced as Yehouah, as the name of god. This is Jehovah, the V being properly a W, pronounced as a long O sound (OO) as it is in the alternative written form Yahweh. Later, some priests seemed to settle on the magic number seven, giving seven-lettered names for God. YEHOUAH, SABAOTH, DEBORAH, DELILAH, SE(PH)IROT, SEPIRO(TH), MICHAEL and SOLOMON might reflect this phase.
Semitic Names
The I also transmuted into L (el) and transposed, so that IE became LE and then EL, the Semitic name of God. The EL and the IAH (JAH), became the most frequent names of God among the Semites and were used in hosts of personal names. The Jews have names like Bethel, Emanuel, Michael, Israel, Gabriel, Samuel, Abdiel, Uriel, Muriel, Azazel and many others featuring the EL form. The IO form appears as JO and JEHO in many Hebrew names like Joseph, Joshua, John and Jehosephat, while the JAH form is equally seen in such names as Elijah and Abijah, and the IAH form comes in a such names as Nehemiah, Jeremiah, Obediah, Hezekiah, Isaiah, Messiah and Alleluiah. These endings are usually written in the Greek Testaments in the Greek form IAS, which is the same as IES and IHS. IES was the Phoenician Bacchus, or the Sun personified. This name is found everywhere on Christian altars, both Protestant and Catholic.
This looks like a linguistic accident but the central S in Jesus’s name curiously matches an Egyptian suffix written either SA, SE, SI, SU, or SAF, SEF, SIF or SUF—alternatively SAPH, SEPH, SIPH or SUPH. The F is an Egyptian ending for the masculine singular so the meaning of it is “the son”, “heir”, “prince” or masculine successor to the father. When the original symbol of divinity, IO or IE, JO or JE, was combined with the Egyptian suffix for the succeeding heir, SU or SA, the resultant was the name IUSA, IUSE, IUSU, or IOSE; or IESU, JESU, IUSEF, IOSEF, JOSEF. One of the many forms was JESU and another was JOSEF.
Jesus therefore means the “divine son”, and combined in the Egyptian IU the idea of the coming one. Hence JESUS was the Messiah, the coming son of the divine life. Indeed, messiah is a combination of the Egyptian word MS and the word for god, IAH. MS means “son” so the meaning of Messiah is precisely “son of God”. It is the same word as Rameses where Ra, the name of the sun god replaces Iah and the words are reversed in order. Scholars, Christian and Jewish alike, say Messiah means “the anointed one”, deriving Messiah from the word for anointing with oil. They have, of course, got the derivations back to front. The word for making someone a son of God by anointing them with oil was derived from the purpose of the ritual, not the other way round.
Sun Gods
Startling as this etymology is, more amazing is the realisation that the Old Testament of the Bible itself has about twenty sun gods called Jesus or one of its cognate forms! Besides the variant forms of Jesus already noted, there are still others in the Jewish scriptures which most people do not suspect as being related to the name of the Christian saviour—Joshua, Hosea and Jesse are indisputably of the same root. Among Semitic people we also find other related names like Yusuf, Yehoshua and Yeshu. Isaac, Esau, Jacob, Jeshu, Joachim and Jonah might not seem so clearly the same.
Jonah and the whale is a story which refers to the Mesopotamian town of Nineveh, where in the earliest tradition Tiamat, the earth mother, and sea goddess, swallows the sun, Marduk, at the end of his journey across the heavens. The scriptural story depicts the messenger of God, Jonah, as Marduk and the monster, Tiamat, as the whale. Jonah who therefore represents the sun is saved by God from the Babylonian monster and goes on to convert the whole city of Nineveh. Noah’s Ark is similarly an adaptation of the journey of the sun around the heavens, the animals being the constellations.
There are yet other sun god figures in the Old Testament under unrelated names. Samson or Sampson whose name means “solar” and whose hair (rays) was cut off by Delilah is perhaps the most obvious one, being a Semitic Hercules. Solomon and Saul both derive from the same root as soul and sol, the sun in Latin. David, Abraham, Moses, Gideon, Jephtha are also among those whose actions identify them as solar representatives. In 2 Kings 23:11 is clear evidence of Jewish sun worshipping, when king Josiah, removed the horses that the kings of Judah had dedicated to the sun.
The Book of Joshua leads us to think that he had several attributes of the sun god, and that, like Samson and Moses, he was an ancient deity reduced to human status. He is the son of Nun, the primeval Egyptian god who created everything but then receded into the waters to lift up the sun each dawn. His symbol was a fish. Horus in Egypt had been a fish from time immemorial, and when the equinox entered the sign of Pisces, Horus, was portrayed as Ichthys with the fish sign of over his head. Joshua might originally have been Horus as Iusa, it being a cult of Horus which left Egypt and found a home in the promised land of Canaan when it was part of the Egyptian kingdom, its followers being called Israelites. Israel then means “Our God is the Son of Ra!” When the equinox entered Pisces, this perhaps signified to some Jews that Joshua was the messiah.
The historicity of the Exodus is undermined by the lack of archaeological evidence. By coincidence, it is celebrated at the festival of Passover at the vernal equinox, in spring when the Paschal supper is consumed. It is a well known principle that legends are often invented to explain ritual practices, the origins of which have been forgotten or have become inappropriate. It is clear then that the Passover really celebrates the passing over of the sun from being below the celestial horizon to being above it. Both the Book of Enoch and the Jewish Kaballah put the Exodus in the sky not in true history. The events of the Exodus are historically impossible, in any case. 600,000 men could not have been mobilized in a single night. Nor could three million people with their flocks and herds have drawn water from a single well.
James Trimm on the name of God
James Trimm, a modern Essene, explains that Jews used the name of Yehouah commonly before the first century BC. According to the Talmud, the priest stopped using Yehouah in the blessings after the time of Simon the Just, a contemporary of Alexander the Great. Even when reading the scriptures, Jews used euphemisms for Yehouah, notably the Lord. Later in the Second Temple era, Yehouah was used, but only in the temple:
In the sanctuary one says Yehouah as it is written but in the provinces, with a euphemism. (Mishnah)
The Mishnah adds that, in the Temple, Yehouah was used even in giving greetings:
Boaz came from Bethlehem, and he said to the reapers, “Yehouah be with you!” And they answered, “Yehouah bless you”.
Even the Qumran community (Essenes) held to the ban. The Manual of Discipline states:
Anyone who speaks aloud the Most Holy Name of God, in cursing or as a blurt, in time of trial or for any other reason, or while he is reading a book or praying, is to be expelled, never again to return to the society of the Yahad.1QS 6:27b-7:2a
After the destruction of the temple in 70 AD Pharisaic Judaism banned use of Yehouah altogether. Towards the end of the first century, Josephus, writing on the events of Exodus 3, mentions the ban on using the name of Yehouah:
Whereupon God declared to Moses his holy Name, which had never been discovered to men before, concerning which it is not lawful for me to say anymore.Josephus, Antiquities 2:12:4
The Septuagint is a translation into Greek of the scriptures supposedly made around 250 BC. The five books of Moses might have been translated so early but the job was not finished probably until the first century BC. The Septuagint translators paraphrased Leviticus 24:16 to read, “And he that names the name of the Lord, Let him die the death”. when it actually read, “And whoever blasphemes the name of Yehouah shall surely be put to death”. The ban on using the name was obviously being applied.
Yehouah is missing from the Aramaic parts of Daniel, though the name appears in the Hebrew parts. So, by the time Daniel was written in 167 BC, Yehouah would not be used in the vernacular language, but only in the religious language, Hebrew.
The ancient scribes of the scriptures substituted Adonai for Yehouah in the text itself. These in many translations are printed as Lord. The official list given in the Massorah (107:15, Gingsburg edition) contain 134 instances, where repetition of verses shows the number of changes in the same verse:
Gen 18:3,27,30,32; 19:18; 20:4 Ex 4:10,13; 5:22,; 15:17; 34:9,9 Num 14:17 Josh 7:8 Jg 6:15; 13:8 1 Kgs 3:10,15; 22:6 2 Kgs 7:6; 19:23 Isa 3:17,18; 4:4; 6:1,8,11; 7:14,20; 8:7; 9:8,17; 10:12; 11:11; 21:6,8,16; 28:2; 29:13; 30:20; 37:24; 38:14,16; 49:14 Ezek 18:25,29; 21:13; 33:17,29 Amos 5:16; 7:7,8; 9:1 Zech 9:4 Mic 1:2 Mal 1:12,14 Ps 2.4; 16:2; 22:19,30; 30:8; 35:3,17,22; 37:12; 38:9,15,22; 39:7; 40:17; 44:23; 51:15; 54:4; 55:9; 57:9; 59:11; 62:12; 66:18; 68:11,17,19,22,26,32; 73:20; 77:2,7; 78:65; 79:12; 86:3,4,5,8,9,12,15; 89:49,50; 90:1,17; 110:5; 130:2,3,6 Dan 1:2; 9:3,4,7,9,15,16,17,19,19,19 Lam 1:14,15,15; 2:1,2,5,7,18,19,20; 3:31,36,37,58 Ezra 10:3 Neh 1:11; 4:14 Job 28:28.
The Ineffable Name
Those who enacted the ban on the use of the name in mainline Judaism did so out of extreme, though misguided, reverence for the name. The reasoning behind the ban was based on Exodus 20:7: “You shall not take the name of Yehouah your God in vain”, and Leviticus 22:32: “You shall not profane my holy name”. Not pronouncing Yehouah at all, removed any chance of profaning it or taking it in vain.
The ban on use of the name conflicted directly with the Torah itself, for, in the Torah, Yehouah says:
My Name shall be declared in all the earth.Exod 9:16
My people shall know my name.Isa 52:6
And those who know your name will put their trust in you.Ps 9:10
I will deliver him, I will set him on high, because he has known my name.Ps 91:14
A book of remembrance was written before Him for those who fear Yehouah and who meditate on His name.Mal 3:16
Let them praise Your great and awesome name- He is holy.Ps 99:3
My mouth shall speak the praise of Yehouah, and all flesh shall bless His holy name forever and ever.Ps 145:21
Let them praise the name of Yehouah…Ps 148:13
The scriptures also speak of apostates which think to cause my people to forget my name (Jer 23:27), contradicting the habit, approved by the Rabbis, that the name should be hidden and kept secret (b.Pes 50a; b.Kidd 71a). This change conflicts with the Torah itself which says:
You shall not add to the word which I command you, nor take from it…Dt 4:2
You shall not add to it nor take away from it.Dt 12:32
Pronouncing YHWH
The divine name is not pronounced Jehovah. Yehouah is actually four vowels IAUE. Josephus writes that the High Priest wore a headpiece on which…
…was engraved the sacred name. It consisted of four vowels.Wars 5:5:7
The Jewish king, Jehu (Yehouah), is named “Iaue” in the Assyrian records. Josephus was addressing westerners for whom the letters YHW were vowels, though in Hebrew they are consonants too. Hebrew was originally a syllabary in which each letter symbolized a consonant vowel pair with the vowel being ambiguous. From the ninth century BC, the Hebrew letters YHW served also as vowels. So the four letter in the original Canaanite pronunciation of YHWH were considered as consonants with an associated unspecified vowel.
The scriptures were written without vowels. When the Masorites added vowels to the Hebrew text in the middle ages, the vowels used in pronouncing YHWH were unknown. The vowels for Adonai were translanted into the word YHWH. Later the vowels for Eloah (God) were used creating YEHOWAH. In fact the O is superfluous because the W is pronounced as OO, but the correct pronounciation of Yehouah was, nevertheless, preserved.
Evidence for the pronounciation of Yehouah is found in Hebrew names beginning with the name of God:
- Yehoshaphat (Jehoshaphat) YEHO-Shaphat
- Yehoshua (Joshua) YEHO-Shua
In these names the incorrect vowels from YEHOWAH have been transplanted into their names. Names that end in God’s name are different:
- Yeshayahu (Isaiah) Yesha-YAHU
- Yiramiyahu (Jeremiah) Yiremi-YAHU
- Eliyahu (Elijah) Eli-YAHU
Moreover the first three letters of Yehouah appear by themselves in the scripture always with the vowels being YAHU. Finally, the Hebrew word Halleluyah (praise-Yah) has the first portion of the divine name with the vowels YAH. More evidence supporting this comes from the Syriac which has had vowels since the foourth century AD and begins names with YAHO rather than YEHO.
In ancient transliterations of the name into Egyptian hieroglyphics, Budge’s An Egyptian Hieroglyphic Dictionary gives two transliterations that occur in Egyptian glyphs—IA or YA, and IAA or YAA. In ancient transliterations of the name of Yehouah into cuneiform script, which unlike Hebrew script, had written vowels, reads Yahweh. In the Murashu texts, Aramaic texts written in cuneiform script on clay tablets found at Nippur, the first portion of Jewish names recorded there appear as YAHU and never as YEHO. Transliterations of Yehouah also occur in ancient Greek texts where it variously occurs as IA, IAOUE, AWOUEI, IAW, IWE. Greek witnesses agree that Yehouah begins with YA. The pronounciation of Yehouah can be recovered as YAHUWEH sometimes abbreviated as YAHWEH, YAHU or YAH.
This is quite compelling but underplays the use of YEHO or YEHU in the best sources of Jewish names, the Jewish scriptures. Transliterations of ancient hieroglyphs and cuneiform can tell us nothing about pronunciation. Moreover, vowels are notoriously fluid and change immensely in pronunciation from place to place and time to time. The variation between E and A in the written texts seems to reflect such changes in pronunciation. The actual pronunciation of the A or E was probably often nothing more than an UH sound as it often is in English, depicted as an inverted “e”. YUHUWUH is perhaps the best pronunciation of all, but Yehouah will be retained here as being more familiarly related to names like Yehoshua.
