Time Frames and Taboo Data Blog

During the timeframe 1000-960 BCE, superstition ran rampant throughout the Near East cultures due in part to frightening disturbances in the observable heavens that had gone on for generations.  (See posts: Years of Heavenly Havoc, July 2010:  Threats From Heaven, Sept. 2010.)  This is reflected in this general timeframe in the development stage of the faith system that would become Judaism when the drive for authoritarian tribal control led wily priests to concoct from ancient knowledge the mystery device known as the Tetragrammaton.  This was nothing more than four Hebrew letters transliterated from Yahweh as YHWH (or Jehovah as JHVH) and used as a symbol or substitute for the alleged “ineffable name of God.”

The Hebrews were led to regard the four letters YHWH (Yod He Vau He) to make up the real name of God.  It was, in fact, more of a priestly formula that played upon an ancient numerical riddle in which the number four was shown to be reducible to two opposites.  These two opposites could then produce a third or unifying principle, which, because it is made up of two opposites, must contain the original four.  (This indicates there had been some understanding of DNA/RNA roles transmitting genetic information from parents to offspring.)  In the Hebrew priest interpretation, the quadrangular creative elements could also be epitomized triangularly and used as well as a trinity mystery.  (The later Christian fathers would also promote the triangular aspect active in Creation, but it was/is an even more divine (unnatural) mystery—Father, Son, and Holy Ghost—which unites absolutely no opposites.)  The divine mystery of the ineffable name of God is cunningly hidden in plain sight with the four letters, YHWH.

The letter Yod is the letter of the phallus, which symbolizes the will to create, and thus regarded as the “father” of creative activity.  Being the active principle, Yod was therefore presented as male, and was represented as fire, hot and dry.

The letter He represented the passive principle—the bearing principle—and was thus understood as the “mother” which gave forth understanding.  This passive action was therefore regarded as female, and was represented with the element of water, and thus was typified as cold and wet.  In unification with Yod, the letter He produced the Sun (or Son) which is represented with…

…the letter Vau (similar to W), and signifies the product of will and understanding (fire and water), which functions as mind.  This trinity power is thus characterized as male, and typified as air, being hot and wet. 

The letter He (the feminine aspect) is repeated, which simply represents energy borne into materialization from the gathered first three creative aspects made active as substance-forms and bearing them forth into matter forms.  This activity was therefore characterized as feminine, and represented as the element earth, and typified as being cold and dry.

The alleged consequence of speaking the name of God, the priests avowed, was that it would bring about the end of Creation.  Considering the periodic heavenly disturbances and resultant upheavals on Earth that occurred for generations when this superstition was advanced, the false notion of the Creator’s ineffable name was an easy sell.  Thus for a period of history the Hebrew name for God, Yahweh, went unuttered and was replaced with references borrowed from Sumerian/Babylonian words such as Adonai (Genesis 15:2), and Elohim (in some versions of Genesis 1:1).  The word El, used in many ancient Near East cultures to personify “the Lord,” or God, referred to the singular creative power out of which all things become manifest.  The original Hebrew account, unlike the translations of holy word that we are presented today, read: “In the beginning Elohim (several gods or the personified polarized energies) bara the heavens.”  The word bara translates as cut out, or as we might say God carved out the heavens and Earth from primal energies. 

The four letters, Yod He Vau He, as previously noted, represented the four interactive creative essentials that involve within the Source as two opposites (polar action), which can become creatively activated in either quadrangular or triangular creative exchanges.  Thus when, in Genesis 1:26, the creative power is alleged to have said; “Let us make Man in our image and after our likeness,” the reference is in regard to those opposites (or polarities) that generated Creation, and those interactive polarities were symbolized by the priests with the letters YHWH—the Tetragrammaton.

This entry was posted on November 22, 2010 at 12:03 am and is filed under agnoticism, Atheism, Atheist, belief, Bible, culture, faith, freethought, Hebrew scripture, history, humanity, random, religion, thoughts with tags Adonai, holy mystery, ineffable name, meaning of Elohim, Tetragrammaton, YHWH. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.