Donald Tyson is a expert on the word, YHWH, the true name of God. He tells us how this word unlocks the meaning behind astrological symbolism, the Tarot, the kabbalah, the mysteries of the Old Testament and the Book of Revelation, how it relates to the I Ching, the Enochian Magic of John Dee, and how it is the blueprint of creation itself, the basis for DNA's double helix and even the binary language of computers. Then Linda talks to Jim Marrs with an explosive interview about what the 911 Commission DIDN'T tell us Yahweh (/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. At a later period Yahweh functioned as the dynastic cult (the god of the royal house), the royal courts promoting him as the supreme god over all others in the pantheon, notably Baal, El, and Asherah (the last of whom may have been his consort). Over time Yahwism became increasingly intolerant of rivals, and the royal court and temple promoted Yahweh as God of the entire cosmos, possessing all the positive qualities previously attributed to the other gods and goddesses. With the work of Second Isaiah (the theoretical author of the second part of the Book of Isaiah) towards the end of the Babylonian exile (6th century BCE), the very existence of foreign gods was denied, and Yahweh was proclaimed as the creator of the cosmos and true God of all the world. By early post-biblical times the name of Yahweh had ceased to be pronounced. In modern Judaism it is replaced with the word Adonai, meaning Lord, and is understood to be God's proper name and to denote his mercy. Many Christian Bibles follow the Jewish custom and replace it with "the Lord" The earliest putative reference to Yahweh in the historical record occurs in a list of Bedouin tribes of the Transjordan made by Amenhotep III. In it, mention is made of the Shasu of Yhw. In 1979, Michael Astour suggested that the hieroglyphic rendering of Yhw corresponded very well with what would be expected if the term signified Yahweh. Donald B. Redford thinks it reasonable to conclude that the demonym 'Israel' recorded on the Merneptah Stele refers to a Shasu enclave, and that, since later Biblical tradition portrays Yahweh "coming forth from Se'ir" the Shasu, originally from Moab and northern Edom, went on to form one major element in the amalgam that was to constitute the "Israel" which later established the Kingdom of Israel. Rainey has a similar view in his analysis of the el-Amarna letters. A large body of scholars, following William Dever, argue that the archaeological evidence suggests that the Israelites arose peacefully and internally in the highlands of Canaan. In Dever's words, "most of those who came to call themselves Israelites ... were or had been indigenous Canaanites." In this view, what distinguished Israel from other emerging Iron Age Canaanite societies was the belief in Yahweh as the national god, rather than, for example, Chemosh, the god of Moab, or Milcom, the god of the Ammonites. This would require that the Transjordanian Yahweh worshipers not be identified with Israelites, but perhaps with Edomite tribes who introduced Yahweh to Israel. One longstanding theory is that Yahweh originated as a warrior-god in the region of Edom and Midian, south of Judah, and was introduced into the northern and central highlands by southern tribes such as the Kenites; Karel van der Toorn has suggested that his rise to prominence in Israel was due to the influence of Saul, Israel's first king, who was of Edomite background. Several pieces of evidence have led scholars to the conclusion that El was the original "God of Israel"—for example, the word "Israel" is based on the name of El rather than on that of Yahweh. El was the head of the Canaanite pantheon, with Asherah as his consort and Baal and other deities making up the pantheon. With his rise, Yahweh became identified with El to such an extent that El's name became a generic word meaning simply "god"; Asherah became Yahweh's consort, and Yahweh and Baal at first co-existed and later competed within the popular religion.

• published: 04 Nov 2013
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