Foreign
Source: TW
I find it rather amusing when Christian apologists argue that Allah is a pre-Islamic Arab deity since YHWH was also a “foreign” deity from the South or South East.
The Bible points to a Southern origin of YHWH: • YHWH advances from Seir/Edom (Judges 5:4-5) • YHWH comes from Sinai, shines from Seir, and appears from Paran (Deuteronomy 33:2) • YHWH comes from Teman and the holy one from Paran (Habakkuk 3:3)
Moreover, Hosea 12:9 seems to preserve the earliest Yahwistic “recognition formula,” as it is simpler than the formulas in Exodus 20:2 and Psalm 81:10. ʾnky YHWH ʾlhyk mʾrṣ mṣrym (ʾānōkiy YHWH ʾelōhekā mē-eresˤ misˤrāyim) “I am YHWH, your God [who comes] from the Land of Egypt” The preposition “mē-” (“from, out of”) is a phonologically conditioned variant of the preposition מִן (“min”). The final “ן” is weak and can be elided before a guttural (א/ה/ח/ע) and rēš (ר), leading to compensatory lengthening of the vowel.
Although certain academic translations like Oxford Annotated Bible and English Standard Bible do translate the verse correctly, most translations misleadingly render “from the land of Egypt” as “ever since the land of Egypt,” unidiomatically interpreting “min” temporally.
It’s clear that the original formula was meant to express the deity’s original pedigree as the deity of bedouins of the Sinai Peninsula, which is part of greater Egypt.
YHWH never delivered the Jews from Egypt (there is no evidence for a mass Exodus of Canaanites from Egypt). On the contrary, the deity YHWH himself likely originated from (greater) Egypt.
Moreover, a temple column from Soleb in Nubia which dates to the time of Amenhotep III associates YHWH with the šꜣsw, desert nomads/bedouins who lived at the fringes or borderlands of Egypt where the Egyptians would mine copper and turquoise and quarry sandstone/granite.
Given these facts, it’s very likely that the cult of YHWH likely entered Canaan from the South (Sinai Peninsula), East (Wadi al-ʿArabah, Transjordan), or Southeast (Tayman/Edom, Midian and northern Hijaz), possibly around the time of Saul.
Central Semitic languages closer to Arabic than to NW Semitic languges (Canaanite languages, Aramaic, Ugaritic, etc.) may’ve been spoken across a large area stretching from northern Arabia into southern Transjordan and the southern Levant during the late Iron Age. The ʿAyn ʿAvdat inscription shows that a language similar to Nabataean Arabic was still being spoken among nomads of the Negev as late as the 2nd century AD.
In other words, the earliest roots of the YHWH cult likely trace back to early (Proto-Arabic speaking?) nomadic cultures from Midian or Edom and was not indigenous to Palestine/Canaan. The ancient Israelite/Canaanite pantheon was similar to the pantheon of the Ugaritic Baʿl Cycle, which makes no mention of any deity named YHWH.
Moreover, the earliest theophoric names in Israel mention “-ʾĒl” and “-Baʿal,” not “-Yāhu” Yerubbaʿal (“Baʿal strives,” also the theophoric name of the shofet Gideon), is attested on pottery dating to the 11th century BC. The priests of the YHWHist (proto-Jewish) nomads demonized the native Levantine deity Baʿal/Hadad to promote their new deity YHWH.
Bloodlust
Source: TW
The Lord’s Prayer comes from Christian scripture and is directed to Jesus’ “father,” i.e. the Jewish God YHWH, a bloodthirsty Midianite-Kenite deity who regularly commands “ḤRM” (“ban” or “dedication to destruction”).
Cities that were placed under the ḤRM were to be utterly destroyed and not a single man was to be left alive.
“The Lord our God delivered him over to us and we struck him down, together with his sons and his whole army. At that time we took all his towns and completely destroyed them- men, women and children. We left no survivors.” (Deuteronomy 2:33-34)
So the Lord our God also gave into our hands Og king of Bashan and all his army. We struck them down, leaving no survivors. At that time we took all his cities. There was not one of the sixty cities that we did not take from them—the whole region of Argob, Og’s kingdom in Bashan. All these cities were fortified with high walls and with gates and bars, and there were also a great many unwalled villages. We completely destroyed them, as we had done with Sihon king of Heshbon, destroying every city—men, women and children. (Deuteronomy 3:3-6)
When the Lord your God brings you into the land you are entering to possess and drives out before you many nations—the Hittites, Girgashites, Amorites, Canaanites, Perizzites, Hivites and Jebusites, seven nations larger and stronger than you— and when the Lord your God has delivered them over to you and you have defeated them, then you must destroy them totally. Make no treaty with them, and show them no mercy. (Deuteronomy 7:1-2)
And you shall consume all the peoples that the Lord your God will give over to you. Your eye shall not pity them, neither shall you serve their gods, for that would be a snare to you. (Deuteronomy 7:16)
So Joshua subdued the whole region, including the hill country, the Negev, the western foothills and the mountain slopes, together with all their kings. He left no survivors. He totally destroyed all who breathed, just as the Lord, the God of Israel, had commanded. (Joshua 10:40)
Joshua took all these royal cities and their kings and put them to the sword. He totally destroyed them, as Moses the servant of the Lord had commanded. (Joshua 11:12)
Now go, attack the Amalekites and totally destroy all that belongs to them. Do not spare them; put to death men and women, children and infants, cattle and sheep, camels and donkeys. (1 Samuel 15:2-3)
Sometimes there were exceptions to the absolute destruction of the ḤRM (“ban”/“devotion to destruction”), though they are few and far between:
The city and all that is in it are to be devoted to the Lord. Only Rahab the prostitute and all who are with her in her house shall be spared, because she hid the spies we sent. (Joshua 6:17)
This practice of is also attested a few centuries prior to the Torah in the “Mesha” Stele where Mesha boasts about placing the city of Nebo under ḤRM for the God Kamōš.
Sparing enemies or showing mercy was regarded as a violation of “ḤRM” and disobedience to YHWH. When the Israelites/Jews would place a city under Ḥ-R-M they were not permitted to take prisoners, slaves, etc. or spare the residents of the city. Both the people of the city and their belongings were declared Ḥ-R-M, i.e. dedicated/set aside on behalf of the deity YHWH. The entire city was therefore subject to total annihilation.
(Ḥ-R-M originally signified something sacrosanct and hence set aside for ritual use. Hence the name Masjid al-Ḥarām for the Great Mosque in Mecca. By lexical extension, Ḥ-R-M came to also refer to something which is forbidden.)
Saul famously spared the king Agag and kept the best sheep and cattle to sacrifice to YHWH.
He did not fully carry out YHWH’s command to kill EVERY man, woman, child, and infant and EVERY ox, sheep, camel, and donkey among the Amalekites and therefore lost his right to kingship.
Israelis like Netanyahu still reference this primitive Biblical “anti-Amalekite” bloodfeud even to this day.