Lightning Bolts and Thunderbolts Associated in Religion and Deities

by | May 14, 2025 | Blog

Damien Marie AtHope’s Art

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“Proto-Indo-European mythology is the myths and deities associated with speakers of the Indo-European, including Albanian, Armenian, Balto-Slavic, Celtic, Germanic, Hellenic, Indo-Iranian, Italic, English, French, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish, and Dutch. The Proto-Indo-European pantheon includes a number of securely reconstructed deities, since they are both cognates—linguistic siblings from a common origin—and associated with similar attributes and body of myths: such as *Dyḗws Ph₂tḗr, the daylight-sky god; his consort *Dʰéǵʰōm, the earth mother; his daughter *H₂éwsōs, the dawn goddess; his sons the Divine Twins; and *Seh₂ul and *Meh₁not, a solar deity and moon deity, respectively. Some deities, like the weather god *Perkʷunos or the herding-god *Péh₂usōn, are only attested in a limited number of traditions—Western (i.e. European) and Graeco-Aryan, respectively—and could therefore represent late additions that did not spread throughout the various Indo-European dialects.” ref, ref

“Some myths are also securely dated to Proto-Indo-European times, since they feature both linguistic and thematic evidence of an inherited motif: a story portraying a mythical figure associated with thunder and slaying a multi-headed serpent to release torrents of water that had previously been pent up; a creation myth involving two brothers, one of whom sacrifices the other in order to create the world; and probably the belief that the Otherworld was guarded by a watchdog and could only be reached by crossing a river. Various schools of thought exist regarding possible interpretations of the reconstructed Proto-Indo-European mythology. One of the earliest attested and thus one of the most important of all Indo-European mythologies is Vedic mythology, especially the mythology of the Rigveda, the oldest of the Vedas. The main mythologies used in comparative reconstruction are Iranian, Baltic, Roman, Norse, Celtic, Greek, Slavic, Hittite, Armenian, and Albanian.” ref

It is a typical atheist movement thinking that “fear of lightning created religion and/or deities,” this is not true of religion or deities as a group, which emerged due to lightning; it seems to have been a later myth after there were already sky deities.  

Deities in the main art:

“Polytheistic peoples from many cultures have postulated a thunder deity, the creator or personification of the forces of thunder and lightning; a lightning god does not have a typical depiction and will vary based on the culture. In Indo-European cultures, the thunder god is frequently depicted as male and known as the chief or King of the Gods, e.g.: Indra in Hinduism, Zeus in Greek mythology, Zojz in Albanian mythology, and Perun in ancient Slavic religion.” ref

“The Hindu God Indra was the chief deity and at his prime during the Vedic period, where he was considered to be the supreme God. Indra was initially recorded in the Rigveda, the first of the religious scriptures that comprise the Vedas. Indra continued to play a prominent role throughout the evolution of Hinduism and played a pivotal role in the two Sanskrit epics that comprise the Itihasas, appearing in both the Ramayana and Mahabharata. Although the importance of Indra has since been subsided in favor of other Gods in contemporary Hinduism, he is still venerated and worshipped.” ref

“In Greek mythology, the Elysian Fields, or the Elysian Plains, was the final resting places of the souls of the heroic and the virtuous, evolved from a designation of a place or person struck by lightning, enelysion, enelysios. This could be a reference to Zeus, the god of lightning, so “lightning-struck” could be saying that the person was blessed (struck) by Zeus (/lightning/fortune). Egyptologist Jan Assmann has also suggested that Greek Elysion may have instead been derived from the Egyptian term ialu (older iaru), meaning “reeds,” with specific reference to the “Reed fields” (Egyptian: sekhet iaru / ialu), a paradisiacal land of plenty where the dead hoped to spend eternity.” ref

Damien Marie AtHope’s Art

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“The linguistic evidence for the worship of a thunder god under the name *Perkʷūnos as far back as Proto-Indo-European times (4500–2500 BCE) is therefore less secure.” ref

“*Perkʷūnos (Proto-Indo-European: ‘the Striker’ or ‘the Lord of Oaks’) is the reconstructed name of the weather god in Proto-Indo-European mythology. The deity was connected with fructifying rains, and his name was probably invoked in times of drought. In a widespread Indo-European myth, the thunder-deity fights a multi-headed water-serpent during an epic battle in order to release torrents of water that had previously been pent up. The name of his weapon, *mel-d-(n)-, which denoted both “lightning” and “hammer”, can be reconstructed from the attested traditions.” ref

*Perkʷūnos was often associated with oaks, probably because such tall trees are frequently struck by lightning, and his realm was located in the wooded mountains, *Perkʷūnyós. A term for the sky, *h₂éḱmō, apparently denoted a “heavenly vault of stone”, but also “thunderbolt” or “stone-made weapon”, in which case it was sometimes also used to refer to the thunder-god’s weapon. Contrary to other deities of the Proto-Indo-European pantheon, such as *Dyēus (the sky-god), or *H₂éwsōs (the dawn-goddess), widely accepted cognates stemming from the theonym *Perkʷūnos are only attested in Western Indo-European traditions.” ref 

“The name *Perkʷunos is generally regarded as stemming from the Proto-Indo-European (PIE) verbal root *per- (‘to strike’). An alternative etymology is the PIE noun *pérkʷus (‘the oak‘), attached to the divine nomenclature *-nos (‘master of’). Various cognates can be found in the Latin oak-nymphs Querquetulanae (from quercus ‘oak-tree’), the Germanic *ferhwaz (‘oak’), the Gaulish erc- (‘oak’) and Quaquerni (a tribal name), the Punjabi pargāi (‘sacred oak’), and perhaps in the Greek spring-nymph Herkyna. The theonym *Perkʷunos thus either meant “the Striker” or “the Lord of Oaks.” ref

“A theory uniting those two etymologies has been proposed in the mythological association of oaks with thunder, suggested by the frequency with which such tall trees are struck by lightning. The existence of a female consort is suggested by gendered doublet-forms such as those found in Old Norse Fjörgyn–Fjörgynn and Lithuanian Perkūnas–Perkūnija. The South Slavic link Perun–Perperuna is not secure. The noun *perkʷunos also gave birth to a group of cognates for the ordinary word “thunder”, including Old Prussian percunis, Polish piorun (“thunderbolt”), Latvian pērkauns (“thunderbolt”), or Lithuanian perkūnas (“thunder”) and perkūnija (“thunderstorm”). On a Thracian enlightenment inscription is mentioned Hero Perkonei (Ηρωεη Περκωνει), an epithet of the god Ares (Mars), a Thracian horseman. Perkʷūnos is also the reflexive name of the god Mars (Ares).” ref

“Other Indo-European theonyms related to ‘thunder’, through another root *(s)tenh₂-, are found in the Germanic Þunraz (Thor), the Celtic Taranis (from an earlier *Tonaros), and the Latin epithet Tonans (attached to Jupiter). According to scholar Peter Jackson, “they may have arisen as the result of fossilization of an original epithet or epiclesis” of Perkʷunos, since the Vedic weather-god Parjanya is also called stanayitnú- (“Thunderer”). Another possible epithet was *tr̥h₂wónts “conquering”, from *térh₂uti “to overcome”, with its descendants being Hittite god Tarḫunna, Luwian Tarḫunz, and Sanskrit तूर्वत् (tūrvat), epithet of a storm-god Indra. George E. Dunkel regarded Perkʷunos as an original epithet of Dyēus, the Sky-God. It has also been postulated that Perkʷunos was referred to as *Diwós Putlós (‘son of Dyēus’), although this is based on the Vedic poetic tradition alone.

Perkʷunos: Weapon

“Perkʷunos is usually depicted as holding a weapon, named *meld-n- in the Baltic and Old Norse traditions, which personifies lightning and is generally conceived as a club, mace, or hammer made of stone or metal. In the Latvian poetic expression Pērkōns met savu milnu (“Pērkōn throws his mace”), the mace (milna) is cognate with the Old Norse mjölnir, the hammer thrown by the thunder god Thor, and also with the word for ‘lightning’ in the Old Prussian mealde, the Old Church Slavonic *mlъni, or the Welsh mellt.” ref

Perkʷunos: Fructifying rains

“While his thunder and lightning had a destructive connotation, they could also be seen as a regenerative force since they were often accompanied by fructifying rains. Parjanya is depicted as a rain god in the Vedas, and Latvian prayers included a call for Pērkōns to bring rain in times of drought. The Balkan Slavs worshipped Perun along with his female counterpart Perperuna, the name of a ritual prayer calling for fructifying rains and centred on the dance of a naked virgin who had not yet had her first monthly period. The earth is likewise referred to as “menstruating” in a Vedic hymn to Parjanya, a possible cognate of Perperuna. The alternative name of Perperuna, Dodola, also recalls Perkūnas‘ pseudonym Dundulis, and Zeus’ oak oracle located at Dodona.” ref

“Perëndi – a name that is used in Albanian for “god, sky”, but considered by some scholars to be an Albanian thunder-god, cognate to Proto-Indo-European *Perkʷūnos – is especially invoked by Albanians in incantations and ritual songs praying for rain. Rituals were performed in times of summer drought to make it rain, usually in June and July, but sometimes also in the spring months when there was severe drought. In different Albanian regions, for rainmaking purposes, people threw water upwards to make it subsequently fall to the ground in the form of rain. This was an imitative type of magic practice with ritual songs.” ref

“A mythical multi-headed water-serpent is connected with the thunder-deity in an epic battle. The monstrous foe is a “blocker of waters”, and his heads are eventually smashed by the thunder-deity to release the pent-up torrents of rain. The myth has numerous reflexes in mythical stories of battles between a serpent and a god or mythical hero, who is not necessarily etymologically related to *Perkʷunos, but always associated with thunder. For example, the Vedic Indra and Vṛtra (the personification of drought), the Iranian Tištry/Sirius and Apaoša (a demon of drought), the Albanian Drangue and Kulshedra (an amphibious serpent who causes streams to dry up), the Armenian Vahagn and Vishap, the Greek Zeus and Typhoeus as well as Heracles and the Hydra, Heracles and Ladon, Apollo, and Python, or the Norse Thor and Miðgarðsormr.” ref

Perkʷunos: Striker and god of oaks

“The association of Perkʷunos with the oak is attested in various formulaic expressions from the Balto-Slavic languages: Lithuanian Perkūno ąžuolas (Perkūnas‘s oak), Latvian Pērkōna uōzuōls (‘Pērkōn’s oak’), or Old Russian Perunovŭ dubŭ (‘Perun‘s oak’). In the Albanian language, a word to refer to the lightning—considered in folk beliefs as the “fire of the sky”—is shkreptimë, a formation of shkrep meaning “to flash, tone, to strike (till sparks fly off)”. An association between strike, stones, and fire, can be related to the observation that one can kindle fire by striking stones against each other. The act of producing fire through a strike—reflected also in the belief that fire is residual within the oak trees after the thunder-god strikes them—indicates the potential of lightning in the myth of creation.” ref 

“The Slavic thunder-god Perūn is said to frequently strike oaks to put fire within them, and the Norse thunder-god Thor to strike his foes the giants when they hide under an oak. Thor famously also had at least one sacred oak dedicated to him. According to Belarusian folklore, Piarun made the first fire ever by striking a tree in which the Demon was hiding. The striking of devils, demons, or evildoers by Perkʷunos is another motif in the myths surrounding the Baltic Perkūnas and the Vedic Parjanya. In Lithuanian and Latvian folkloric material, Perkunas/Perkons is invoked to protect against snakes and illness.” ref

Perkʷunos: Wooded mountains

“Perkʷunos is often portrayed in connection with stone and (wooded) mountains; mountainous forests were considered to be his realm. A cognate relationship has been noted between the Germanic *fergunja (‘[mountainous] forest’) and the Gaulish (h)ercunia (‘[oaks] forests’). The Old Russian chronicles describes wooden idols of Perūn on hills overlooking Kiev and Novgorod, and both the Belarusian Piarun and the Lithuanian Perkūnas were said to dwell on lofty mountaintops. Such places are called perkūnkalnis in Lithuanian, meaning the “summit of Perkūnas”, while the Slavic word perynja designated the hill over Novgorod where the sanctuary of Perun was located. Prince Vladimir the Great had an idol of Perūn cast down into the Dnepr river during the Christianization of Kievan Rus’.” ref

“In Germanic mythology, Fjörgynn was used as a poetic synonym for ‘the land, the earth’, and she could have originally been the mistress of the wooded mountains, the personification of what appears in Gothic as fairguni (‘wooded mountain’). Additionally, the Baltic tradition mentions a perpetual sacred fire dedicated to Perkūnas and fuelled by oakwood in the forests or on hilltops. Pagans believed that Perkūnas would freeze if Christians extinguished those fires. Words from a stem *pér-ur- are also attested in the Hittite pēru (‘rock, cliff, boulder’), the Avestan pauruuatā (‘mountains’), as well as in the Sanskrit goddess Parvati and the epithet Parvateshwara (‘lord of mountains’), attached to her father Himavat.” ref

Perkʷunos: Stony skies

“A term for the sky, *h₂ekmōn, denoted both ‘stone’ and ‘heaven’, possibly a ‘heavenly vault of stone’ akin to the biblical firmament. The motif of the stony skies can be found in the story of the Greek Akmon (‘anvil’), the father of Ouranos and the personified Heaven. The term akmon was also used with the meaning ‘thunderbolt’ in Homeric and Hesiodic diction. Other cognates appear in the Vedic áśman (‘stone’), the Iranian deity Asman (‘stone, heaven’), the Lithuanian god Akmo (mentioned alongside Perkūnas himself), and also in the Germanic *hemina (German: Himmel, English: heaven) and *hamara (cf. Old Norse: hamarr, which could mean ‘rock, boulder, cliff’ or ‘hammer’). Akmo is described in a 16th-century treatise as a saxum grandius, ‘a sizeable stone’, which was still worshipped in Samogitia.” ref

“Albanians believed in the supreme powers of thunder-stones (kokrra e rrufesë or guri i rejës), which were believed to be formed during lightning strikes and to be fallen from the sky. Thunder-stones were preserved in family life as important cult objects. It was believed that bringing them inside the house could bring good fortune, prosperity and progress in people, in livestock and in agriculture, or that rifle bullets would not hit the owners of the thunder-stones. A common practice was to hang a thunder-stone pendant on the body of the cattle or on the pregnant woman for good luck and to counteract the evil eye.” ref

“The mythological association can be explained by the observation (e.g., meteorites) or the belief that thunderstones (polished ones for axes in particular) had fallen from the sky. Indeed, the Vedic word áśman is the name of the weapon thrown by Indra, Thor’s weapon is also called hamarr, and the thunder-stone can be named Perkūno akmuõ (‘Perkuna‘s stone’) in the Lithuanian tradition. Scholars have also noted that Perkūnas and Piarun are said to strike rocks instead of oaks in some themes of the Lithuanian and Belarusian folklores, and that the Slavic Perūn sends his axe or arrow from a mountain or the sky. The original meaning of *h₂ekmōn could thus have been ‘stone-made weapon’, then ‘sky’ or ‘lightning’.” ref

“The following deities are cognates stemming from *Perkʷunos or related names in Western Indo-European mythologies:

  • PIE: *per-, ‘to strike’ (or *pérkʷus, the ‘oak‘),
    • PIE: *per-kʷun-os, the weather god,
      • Baltic:
        • Yotvingian: Parkuns (or Parcuns),
        • Latgalian: Pārkiuņs (ltg);
        • Lithuanian: Perkūnas, the god of rain and thunder, depicted as an angry-looking man with a tawny beard,
        • Latvian: Pērkōns, whose functions are occasionally merged with those of Dievs (the sky-god) in the Latvian dainas (folk songs),
        • Percunatele or Perkunatele, a female deity associated with Perkunas, as mother or wife;
    • PIE: *per-uh₁n-os, the ‘one with the thunder stone’,
    • PIE: *per-kʷun-iyo (feminine *per-kʷun-iyā, the ‘realm of Perkʷunos’, i.e. the [wooded] mountains),
      • Celtic: *ferkunyā,
        • Gaulish: the Hercynian (Hercynia) forest or mountains, ancient name of the Ardennes and the Black Forest, which was also known as Arkunia by the time of Aristotle; Hercuniates (‘Ερκουνιατες; attached to the suffix –atis ‘belonging to’), the name of a Celtic tribe from Pannonia, as described by Pliny and Ptolemy.
      • Germanic: *fergunja, meaning ‘mountain’, perhaps ‘mountainous forest’ (or the feminine equivalent of *ferga, ‘god’),
        • Old Norse: Fjörgyn, the mother of the thunder-god Thor, the goddess of the wooded landscape and a poetic synonym for ‘land’ or ‘the earth’,
        • Gothic: fairguni (𐍆𐌰𐌹𐍂𐌲𐌿𐌽𐌹), ‘(wooded) mountain’, and fairhus, ‘world’, Old English: firgen, ‘mountain’, ‘wooded hill’,
        • Old High German: Firgunnea, the Ore Mountains, and Virgundia Waldus, Virgunnia, ‘oaks forest’,
      • Slavic: *per(g)ynja, ‘wooded hills’ (perhaps an early borrowing from Germanic),

“The name of Perkʷunos’ weapon *meld-n- is attested by a group of cognates alternatively denoting ‘hammer’ or ‘lightning’ in the following traditions:

  • PIE: *melh₂-, ‘to grind’,
    • Northern PIE: *mel-d-(n)-, ‘thunder-god’s hammer > lightning’,

“Another PIE term derived from the verbal root *melh₂- (‘to grind’), *molh₁-tlo- (‘grinding device’), also served as a common word for ‘hammer’, as in Old Church Slavonic mlatъ, Latin malleus, and Hittite malatt (‘sledgehammer, bludgeon’). 19th-century scholar Francis Hindes Groome cited the existence of the Romani word malúna as a loanword from Slavic molnija. The Komi word molńi or molńij (‘lightning’) has also been borrowed from Slavic.” ref

“Heavenly vault of stone: PIE: *h₂eḱ-, ‘sharp’,

A metathesized stem *ḱ(e)h₂-m-(r)- can also be reconstructed from Slavic *kamy (‘stone’), Germanic *hamaraz (‘hammer’), and Greek kamára (‘vault’).

Other possible cognates

“Paleo-Balkanic:

    • Albanian:
      • Perëndi “god, deity, sky”, considered by some scholars to be an Albanian sky and thunder god (from per-en-, an extension of PIE *per-, ‘to strike’, attached to -di, the sky-god Dyēus, thus related to *per-uhₓn-os (see above); although the Albanian perëndoj, ‘to set (of the sun)’, from Latin parentare, ‘a sacrifice (to the dead), to satisfy’, has also been proposed as the origin of the theonym,
    • Greek: keraunos (κεραυνός), the name of Zeus‘s thunderbolt, which was sometimes also deified (by metathesis of *per(k)aunos; although the root *ḱerh₂-, ‘shatter, smash’ has also been proposed), and the Herkyna spring-nymph, associated with a river of the same name and identified with Demeter (the name could be a borrowing as it rather follows Celtic sound laws),
    • Thracian: Perkos/Perkon (Περκος/Περκων), a horseman hero depicted as facing a tree surrounded by a snake. His name is also attested as Ήρω Περκω and Περκώνει “in Odessos and the vicinities”.
  • Indo-Iranian:
    • Vedic: Parjanya, the god of rain, thunder and lightning (although Sanskrit sound laws rather predict a parkūn(y)a form; an intermediate form *pergʷenyo- has therefore been postulated, possibly descending from *per-kʷun-(y)o-).
    • Nuristani: Pärun (or Pērūneî), a war god worshipped in Kafiristan (present-day Nuristan Province, Afghanistan),
    • Persian: Piran (Viseh), a heroic figure present in the Shahnameh, the national epic of Greater Iran; it has been suggested his name might be related to the Slavic deity Perun,
    • Scythian: in the 19th century, Russian folklorist Alexander Afanasyev and French philologist Frédéric-Guillaume Bergmann (fr) mentioned the existence of a Scythian deity named Pirkunas or Pirchunas, an epithet attached to the “Scythian Divus” and meaning ‘rainy’.
  • Celtic *(h)erku- (‘oak‘),
    • Hispano-Celtic: Erguena (ERGVENA), a personal name thought to mean ‘oak-born’ (*pérkʷu-genā) or to derive from *pérkʷu-niya ‘wooded mountain’.
    • Celtiberian: berkunetakam (‘Perkunetaka’), a word attested in the Botorrita Plate I and interpreted as a sacred oak grove,
    • Pyrenees: the theonym Expercennius, attested in an inscription found in Cathervielle and possibly referring to an oak god. His name might mean ‘six oaks’.
    • Gaulish: ercos (‘oak’),
      • Gallo-Roman: references to ‘Deus Ercus’ (in Aquitania), ‘Nymphae Percernae’ (Narbonensis), and a deity named ‘Hercura’ (or Erecura) which appears throughout the provinces of the Roman Empire. Patrizia de Bernardo Stempel argues that Aerecura/Hercura derives from a Celtic *perk(w)ura.
    • Irish: Erc (mac Cairpri), mentioned at the end of Táin Bó Cúailnge, and placed on the throne of Tara by Conchobar mac Nessa in Cath Ruis na Ríg for Bóinn; although an alternative etymology from PIE *perk- (‘color’) > *perk-no (‘[spotted] fish’) has been proposed by Hamp and Matasović.
  • Hittite: the words perunas and peruni are attested in a Hittite text of The Song of Ullikummi, and refer to a female being made of ‘Rock’ or ‘Stone’ who gives birth to a rocky creature.
  • Italic:
    • Italian: porca, a word meaning ‘fir tree’ in the Trentino dialect. Mallory and Adams suppose it is a loanword from Raetic.
  • Slavic
    • Pomeranian: Porenut, Latinized as Porenutius in the work of Saxo Grammaticus. The name is believed to refer to a deity worshipped in the port city of Rügen in ancient times as a possible son of Perun.
    • (?) Perperuna, figure invoked in rainmaking in Southeast Europe, which is of obscure etymology, but considered by some as a reduplicated feminine derivative from Perun’s name, which would parallel the Old Norse couple Fjörgyn–Fjörgynn and the Lithuanian Perkūnas–Perkūnija,
  • Romano-Germanic: inscriptions to the Matronae ‘Ala-ferhuiae’ found in Bonn, Altdorf, or Dormagen.
  • Caucasus: it has been suggested that the characters Пиръон (Piryon) and Пиръа (Pirya) may attest the presence of the thunder god’s name in the Caucasus.” ref

“Louis Léger stated that the Polabians adopted Perun as their name for Thursday (Perendan or Peräunedån), which is likely a calque of German Donnerstag. Some scholars argue that the functions of the Luwian and Hittite weather gods Tarḫunz and Tarḫunna ultimately stem from those of Perkʷunos. Anatolians may have dropped the old name in order to adopt the epithet *Tṛḫu-ent- (‘conquering’, from PIE Proto-Indo-European: *terh₂-, ‘to cross over, pass through, overcome’), which sounded closer to the name of the Hattian Storm-god Taru. According to scholarship, the name Tarhunt- is also cognate to the Vedic present participle tū́rvant- (‘vanquishing, conquering’), an epithet of the weather-god Indra.” ref

“Scholarship indicates the existence of a holdover of the theonym in European toponymy, specially in Eastern European and Slavic-speaking regions. In the territory that encompasses the modern day city of Kaštela existed the ancient Dalmatian city of Salona. Near Salona, in Late Antiquity, there was a hill named Perun. Likewise, the ancient oronym Borun (monte Borun) has been interpreted as a deformation of the theonym Perun. Their possible connection is further reinforced by the proximity of a mountain named Dobrava, a widespread word in Slavic-speaking regions that means ‘oak grove’. Places in South-Slavic-speaking lands are considered to be reflexes of Slavic god Perun, such as Perunac, Perunovac, Perunika, Perunićka Glava, Peruni Vrh, Perunja Ves, Peruna Dubrava, Perunuša, Perušice, Perudina, and Perutovac.” ref

“Scholar Marija Gimbutas cited the existence of the place names Perunowa gora (Poland), Perun Gora (Serbia), Gora Perun (Romania), and Porun hill (Istria). Patrice Lajoye associates place names in the Balkans with the Slavic god Perun: the city of Pernik and the mountain range Pirin (in Bulgaria). He also proposes that the German city of Pronstorf is also related to Perun, since it is located near Segeberg, whose former name was Perone in 1199. The name of the Baltic deity Perkunas is also attested in Baltic toponyms and hydronyms: a village called Perkūniškės in Žemaitija, north-west of Kaunas, and the place name Perkunlauken (‘Perkuns Fields’) near modern Gusev.” ref

Smith god?

“Although the name of a particular smith god cannot be linguistically reconstructed, smith gods of various names are found in most Proto-Indo-European daughter languages. There is not a strong argument for a single mythic prototype. Mallory notes that “deities specifically concerned with particular craft specializations may be expected in any ideological system whose people have achieved an appropriate level of social complexity”. Nonetheless, two motifs recur frequently in Indo-European traditions: the making of the chief god’s distinctive weapon (Indra‘s and Zeus‘ bolt; Lugh‘s and Odin‘s spear and Thor‘s hammer) by a special artificer, and the craftsman god’s association with the immortals’ drinking.” ref

Lightning History

“From the beginning of written history, lightning has fascinated mankind. It was the magic fire from the sky that man captured and used to keep warm at night. It kept the savage animals away. As primitive man sought answers about the natural world, lightning became a part of his superstitions, his myths, and his early religions. The Bible says, “When He uttereth His voice, there is a multitude of waters in the heavens; and He causeth the vapours to ascend from the ends of the earth: He maketh lightnings with rain, and bringeth forth the wind out of His treasures.” ref

“Early Greeks believed that lightning was Zeus’ weapon. Thunderbolts were invented by Minerva, the goddess of wisdom. Since lightning was a manifestation of the gods, any spot struck by lightning was regarded as sacred. Greek and Roman temples were often erected at these sites, where the gods were worshipped in an attempt to appease them. The Muslims also attributed lightning and thunder to their god. The Koran says, “He it is who showeth you lightning and launches the thunderbolts.” Scandinavian mythology alludes to Thor, the thunderer, who was the foe of all demons. Thor tossed lightning bolts at his enemies. Thor also gave us Thurs-day.” ref

“In the pantheistic Hindu religion, Indra was the god of heaven, lightning, rain, storms, and thunder. The Maruts used the thunderbolts as weapons. Umpundulo is the lightning bird-god of the Bantu tribesmen in Africa. Even today, their medicine men go out in storms and bid the lightning to strike far away. The Navajo Indians hold that lightning has great power in their healing rituals. Sand paintings show the lightning bolt as a wink in the Thunderbird’s eye. Lightning is associated with wind, rain, and crop growth. As late as the early 1800s in Russia, when rain was wanted, three men climbed a tree. One would knock two firebrands together; the sparks imitating lightning.” ref

“Another one would pour water over twigs, imitating rain. A third would bang on a kettle to attract the thunder. Throughout early Europe, church bell ringers made as much noise as possible, hoping to scare away the storms from these holy dwellings, which were frequently struck by lightning. During the Napoleonic wars, more than 220 British tall ships were damaged–not by the French, but by lightning. The solution, of course, was to install lightning rods. But since that device had been invented by a “rebel colonist” named Benjamin Franklin, His Majesty’s Navy steadfastly refused. It took until the 1830s before the admiralty finally saw the light and forgot about old colonial rebellions.” ref

“Even Santa Claus gets into the act with his reindeer Donner (thunder) and Blitzen (lightning). Early superstitions were observed as Cause and Effect, which has now been fancified as science. Socrates said, “That’s not Zeus up there, it’s a vortex of air.” Genghis Khan forbade his subjects from washing garments or bathing in running water during a storm. Thales, the Greek philosopher, in 600 BC, rubbed a piece of amber with a dry cloth and noted that it would then attract feathers and straw. William Gilbert, court healer to Queen Elizabeth, also used amber in the late 1500s to duplicate the earlier experiments.” ref

“He named this via electrica, after Electra, which is Greek for amber. He didn’t know it, but he was demonstrating static electricity. Lightning is a big spark…static electricity on a giant scale. Machines for creating static electricity were invented. The Leyden jar was like a thermos bottle that stored volts. Friction machines could charge the jars, and electricity could be carried around and demonstrated. “Electric magic” was in great demand at the royal courts of Europe as entertainment. The parlor tricks amused and fascinated people.” ref

A thunderbolt or lightning bolt: a symbolic representation of lightning

“A thunderbolt or lightning bolt is a symbolic representation of lightning when accompanied by a loud thunderclap. In Indo-European mythology, the thunderbolt was identified with the ‘Sky Father’; this association is also found in later Hellenic representations of Zeus and Vedic descriptions of the vajra wielded by the god Indra. It may have been a symbol of cosmic order, as expressed in the fragment from Heraclitus describing “the Thunderbolt that steers the course of all things”. In its original usage the word may also have been a description of the consequences of a close approach between two planetary cosmic bodies, as Plato suggested in Timaeus, or, according to Victor Clube, meteors, though this is not currently the case. As a divine manifestation the thunderbolt has been a powerful symbol throughout history, and has appeared in many mythologies.” ref 

“Drawing from this powerful association, the thunderbolt is often found in military symbolism and semiotic representations of electricity. The name “thunderbolt” or “thunderstone” has also been traditionally applied to the fossilised rostra of belemnoids. The origin of these bullet-shaped stones was not understood, and thus a mythological explanation of stones created where a lightning struck has arisen. Lightning plays a role in many mythologies, often as the weapon of a sky god and weather god. As such, it is an unsurpassed method of dramatic instantaneous retributive destruction: thunderbolts as divine weapons can be found in many mythologies.” ref

Lightning in Religion

“The presence of lightning in religion is an historically existing and currently existing cultural aspect where-by the phenomenon of lightning has been or is viewed as part of a deity or a deity in and of itself, or as a component of a religious practice. One of the most classic portrayals of this is of the Greek god Zeus. An ancient story recounts when Zeus was at war against Cronus and the Titans, he released his brothers, Hades and Poseidon, along with the Cyclopes. In turn, the Cyclopes gave Zeus the thunderbolt as a weapon. The thunderbolt became a popular symbol of Zeus and continues to be today. Ceraunoscopy is divination by observing lightning or by listening to thunder. It is a type of aeromancy. In particular, the ancient Etruscans produced guides to brontoscopic and fulgural divination of the future based on the omens supposedly displayed by thunder or lightning occurring on particular days of the year or in particular places.” ref

“*Perkʷūnos (Proto-Indo-European: ‘the Striker’ or ‘the Lord of Oaks’) is the reconstructed name of the weather god in Proto-Indo-European mythology.” ref

“In Slavic mythology the highest god of the pantheon is Perun, the god of thunder and lightning. A Polish name for lightning is piorun, derived from the god’s name. Pērkons/Perkūnas is the common Baltic god of thunder, one of the most important deities in the Baltic pantheon. In both Latvian and Lithuanian mythology, he is documented as the god of thunder, rain, mountains, oak trees, and the sky. In Norse mythology, Thor is the god of thunder, and the sound of thunder comes from the chariot he rides across the sky. The lightning comes from his hammer Mjölnir. In Finnish mythology, Ukko (engl. Old Man) is the god of thunder, sky, and weather. The Finnish word for thunder is ukkonen, derived from the god’s name.” ref

“In Judaism, a blessing “…He who does acts of creation” is to be recited, upon sighting lightning. The Talmud refers to the Hebrew word for the sky, (“Shamaim”) – as built from fire and water (“Esh Umaim”), since the sky is the source of the inexplicable mixture of “fire” and water that come together, during rainstorms. This is mentioned in various prayers, Psalm 29, and discussed in writings of Kabbalah.” ref

“In Christianity, lightning is symbolized and attributed to the divinity and power of God. In the Bible, lightning (and thunder) are used, for example, for the wrath of God (Exodus 9:24; 2. Samuel 22.15; Job 37; Psalm 18), for God’s judgment (Zechariah 9.14), for God’s revelation to men (Exodus 20:18; Revelation 4:5), for the coming of the Son of Man (Matthew 24:27, Luke 17:24), for the fall of Satan (Luke 10:18) and for the nature of the angels and the risen (Hes 1,14; Daniel 10.6; Matthew 28.3), in the book of Revelation the lightning is often referred to as the final judgment.” ref

“In Islam, the Quran states: “He it is Who showeth you the lightning, a fear and a hope, and raiseth the heavy clouds. The thunder hymneth His praise, and (so do) the angels for awe of Him. He launcheth the thunder-bolts and smiteth with them whom He will.” (Qur’an 13:12–13) and, “Have you not seen how God makes the clouds move gently, then joins them together, then makes them into a stack, and then you see the rain come out of it…” (Quran, 24:43). The preceding verse, after mentioning clouds and rain, speaks about hail and lightning, “…And He sends down hail from mountains (clouds) in the sky, and He strikes with it whomever He wills, and turns it from whomever He wills.” ref

“In India, the Hindu god Indra is considered the god of rains and lightning and the king of the Devas.” ref

“In Inca mythology, Illapa was the god of lightning, thunder, lightning’s flash, rain, weather, and war. As a result of his aforementioned powers, Illapa was considered the third most important god within the Inca pantheon. Only surpassed by Wiracocha and Inti. He is represented as an imposing man in brilliant garments of gold and precious stones who lived in the upper world. Likewise, Illapa carried a warak’a with which he produced storms and a golden makana, which symbolizes his power and the trinity of lightning, thunder, and the flash of lightning. Another representation that the Incas gave to Illapa was that of a warrior formed by stars in the celestial world. His rites took place in the highest mountains, because they believed that Illapa used to live in them. His rites consisted of dances, chants, festivals, and animal sacrifices (in periods of great need, human offerings were also made). Illapa manifested himself in the earthly world in the form of a puma or hawk.” ref

“In Japan, the Shinto god Raijin is considered the god of lightning and thunder. He is depicted as a demon who strikes a drum to create lightning.” ref

“In the traditional religion of the African Bantu tribes, such as the Baganda and Banyoro of Uganda, lightning is a sign of the ire of the gods. The Baganda specifically attribute the lightning phenomenon to the god Kiwanuka, one of the main trio in the Lubaale gods of the sea or lake. Kiwanuka starts wildfires, strikes trees and other high buildings, and a number of shrines are established in the hills, mountains, and plains to stay in his favor. Lightning is also known to be invoked upon one’s enemies by uttering certain chants, prayers, and making sacrifices.” ref

Divine Echoes: The Spiritual Significance of Thunder and Lightning across Religions

“Abstract: This study traces the progression of human knowledge from ancient mythical interpretations to contemporary scientific explanations, investigating the cultural significance of thunder and its role in the development of scientific thought. The goal is to explore how thunder has impacted scientific perspectives and cultural ideas throughout history, the shift from supernatural explanations to empirical data, and the application of artificial intelligence to modern weather forecasting. The process comprises a review of historical and contemporary scientific literature, thus a textual examination of religious texts from many traditions, such as the Bible, Quran, and Vedas. The findings suggest that although thunder was initially thought to be a sign from God, scientific progress, especially during the Enlightenment, has led to a better understanding of thunder as a meteorological event. Furthermore, the modern world is still impacted by the ancient cultural respect for thunder in popular culture, literature, and the arts. The study concludes that the transformation of thunder’s meaning from a representation of divine anger to an occurrence with scientific explanations reflects the advancement of human cognition and the fusion of scientific knowledge with cultural legacies. This knowledge emphasizes how crucial it is to see natural occurrences via cultural and scientific glasses, appreciating the influence of customs while embracing technological progress.” ref

“Natural phenomena such as thunder and lightning have long captivated the human spirit, often interpreted as manifestations of the divine across various religious traditions. These events are not merely physical occurrences; they carry rich symbolic meanings that have influenced religious thought and practice for millennia. This study explores how different religions perceive and ascribe spiritual significance to thunder and lightning, enhancing our understanding of their roles in religious narratives and practices. Historically, human interpretations of natural phenomena like thunder and lightning have been deeply intertwined with religious beliefs. In many cultures, these events are signs of divine intervention or communication. For instance, in Christianity, thunder is often perceived as the voice of God, representing divine power and judgment. Similarly, Islamic teachings describe thunder and lightning as signs of Allah’s glory and reminders of His control over the universe (Nasr, 2006). In Hinduism, these phenomena are associated with Indra, the God of rain and storms, who wields a thunderbolt as a weapon against evil. Despite these rich interpretations, the comparative study of these religious perspectives still needs to be explored.” ref

“While extensive research exists on the scientific explanations of thunder and lightning, their religious and spiritual interpretations have yet to be studied comprehensively, especially in a comparative context. This gap in the literature limits our understanding of how different religions perceive and attribute meaning to these phenomena. As modern societies increasingly focus on scientific explanations, there is a risk that the spiritual significance of thunder and lightning may be overlooked, potentially eroding an essential aspect of religious traditions. This study seeks to address this gap by providing a comparative analysis of the spiritual significance of thunder and lightning, contributing to a more holistic understanding of their role in human culture and spirituality. A comparative analysis of thunder and lightning’s symbolic meanings sheds light on shared and unique perspectives across different faiths. This research can deepen our Understanding of how natural events have shaped and continue to influence religious beliefs and practices. Furthermore, the study has the potential to enrich Contemporary religious practices by highlighting the enduring spiritual significance of these phenomena, which may be overlooked in a modern context that often prioritizes scientific over spiritual explanations.” ref

“The study of thunder and lightning as religious symbols has attracted researchers from different fields. Many religious groups view natural events as manifestations of divine power and communication. This literature review emphasizes the importance of these phenomena in diverse religious contexts. Christian art frequently depicts thunder and lightning as expressions of God’s power and voice. According to Schneider, numerous biblical scriptures depict thunder as an illustration of God’s presence and divine judgment. For example, when God gives Moses the Ten Commandments in the book of Exodus, His voice is compared to thunder (Exodus 19:16). In Christian theology, thunder is often associated with divine authority and communication, signifying God’s omnipotence and his capacity to affect events on Earth. Islamic tradition views lightning and thunder as reminders of Allah’s power and majesty. Several verses in the Qur’an specifically mention these occurrences, highlighting their function as displays of Allah’s omnipotence. According to Nasr, lightning is interpreted as a manifestation of God’s wrath and mercy, while thunder is precisely thought to be the voice of an angel praising God. These explanations highlight the significance of natural events in Islam as a means of divine discourse and moral introspection.” ref

 

“Another all-embracing tradition of thunder and lightning interpretation may be found in Hinduism, especially about the god Indra, who is revered as the creator of storms, rain, and thunder. Basham asserts that Indra’s weapon, the Vajra, or thunderbolt, is an image of his ability to crush evil forces. The larger Hindu worldview, which maintains that natural occurrences directly influence divine decrees, influencing cosmic order and human fate, is congruent with this legendary account of thunder and lightning. Studies that compare various religions’ interpretations of thunder and lightning show parallels and variances. For example, Eliade points out that whereas thunder is considered a divine voice in both Islam and Christianity, in Hinduism, it is painstakingly a weapon of a particular deity. These parallels show how different natural events are incorporated into religious stories and how these interpretations represent the distinctive theological

frameworks of various traditions. Furthermore, Walker contends that despite these variations, all religions share the belief that thunder and lightning are vital, revered natural phenomena that serve as constant reminders of God’s existence and might. Cultural differences notwithstanding, a mutual appreciation for these natural phenomena accentuates their significance in shaping religious practices and beliefs worldwide.” ref

ref, ref, ref, ref, ref, ref

ref

 

“Sami “Horagalles” is the god of the sky, thunder and lightning, the rainbow, weather, oceans, and lakes; and rules over human life, health, and wellbeing. Early scholars noted the similarities between Horagalles and the Norse thunder-god Thor.” ref

Teshub

“Teshub was the Hurrian weather god, as well as the head of the Hurrian pantheon. The etymology of his name is uncertain, though it is agreed it can be classified as linguistically Hurrian. Both phonetic and logographic writings are attested. As a deity associated with the weather, Teshub could be portrayed both as destructive and protective. Individual weather phenomena, including winds, lightning, thunder, and rain, could be described as his weapons. He was also believed to enable the growth of vegetation and create rivers and springs. His high position in Hurrian religion reflected the widespread importance of weather gods in northern Mesopotamia and nearby areas, where, in contrast with the south, agriculture relied primarily on rainfall rather than irrigation. It was believed that his authority extended to both mortal and other gods, both on earth and in heaven. However, the sea and the underworld were not under his control. Depictions of Teshub are rare, though it is agreed he was typically portrayed as an armed, bearded figure, sometimes holding a bundle of lightning. One such example is known from Yazılıkaya. In some cases, he was depicted driving in a chariot drawn by two sacred bulls.” ref

“It is agreed that Teshub’s name is a cognate of the Urartian theonym Teišeba. This god is only attested in sources from the first millennium BCE. Urartian and Hurrian belonged to the same language family as Hurro-Urartian languages, but they already separated in the third millennium BCE, and Teišeba’s presence in the Urartian pantheon cannot be considered the result of the language descending from Hurrian. In contrast with Teshub’s status in Hurrian religion, he was not the head of the pantheon, but rather the second most important god after Ḫaldi, though according to Daniel Schwemer this should be considered a secondary development.” ref

“It has also been proposed that a connection existed between the names of Teshub and Tishpak, a Mesopotamian god regarded as the city deity of Eshnunna. This hypothesis was originally formulated by Thorkild Jacobsen in 1932, but by the 1960s he had abandoned it himself, and instead started to advocate interpreting Tishpak’s name as a derivative of Akkadian šapāku, to be translated as “the down-pouring one”. However, this etymology is not regarded as plausible today. More recently, support for the view that Tishpak might have been related to Teshub has been voiced by Alfonso Archi, who suggests the Mesopotamian god developed through reception of the Hurrian one in the Diyala area. Manfred Krebernik [de] instead classifies the name of Tishpak as Elamite. Marten Stol also tentatively describes it as such. Daniel Schwemer states that there is presently no evidence confirming the identification of Teshub and Tishpak as related deities.” ref

“The two primary roles assigned to Teshub in Hurrian religion were those of a weather god and of the king of the gods. He was regarded both as a destructive figure and as a protector of mankind. He controlled thunder and lightning. In myths, various weather phenomena, including storms, lightning, rain, and wind, function as his weapons. He was responsible for securing the growth of vegetation by sending rain. As an extension of his link with vegetation and agriculture, he could be connected with rivers. A Hurro-Hittite ritual (CTH 776) refers to him as the creator of rivers and springs. The high status of weather gods in Upper Mesopotamia, Syria, and Anatolia reflected the historical reliance on rainfall in agriculture. In contrast, in southern Mesopotamia, where it depended chiefly on irrigation, the weather god (Ishkur/Adad) was a figure of comparatively smaller significance.” ref

“Teshub’s royal authority was believed to extend to both gods and mortals. According to Hurrian tradition his domain included both the heavens and the earth, but the sea and the underworld were areas hostile to him. He was accordingly referred to as the “lord of heaven and earth” (EN AN ú KI). This epithet might be derived from a Syrian tradition. The two most common titles applied to him were ewri, “lord”, and šarri, “king”. The context in which the term ewri was used was different from that of šarri, as the former referred to ordinary historical rulers as well, while the latter was limited to the sphere of myth. Further related epithets of Teshub include šarri talawoži, “great king” and šarri ennāže, “king of the gods”. It is also known that one of the ceremonies in honor of him revolved around the concept of šarrašši, “kingship”. A single text refers to him as eni ennāže, “god of the gods.” ref

“Piotr Taracha argues that Teshub was initially not the head of the Hurrian pantheon, and only reached this position as a part of what he understands as a broader phenomenon of growing prominence of weather gods in the early second millennium BCE. Gernot Wilhelm similarly considers it a possibility that he acquired this role in the beginning of the second millennium BCE. However, Daniel Schwemer argues that Teshub’s status as the supreme deity of the Hurrian pantheon belonged to him since the dawn of recorded history, and arguments on the contrary lack solid proof. He points out that the small number of early theophoric names invoking him cannot be necessarily used as evidence, as other major Hurrian deities, such as Šauška or Kumarbi, are not attested in the early Hurrian onomasticon at all, and non-theophoric names predominate. Support for Schwemer’s views has been voiced by Alfonso Archi.” ref

“According to Song of Emergence, Teshub was born from the split skull of Kumarbi after he bit off the genitals of Anu during a conflict over kingship. This tradition is also referenced in other sources, including a hymn from Aleppo and a Luwian inscription. A single isolated reference to the moon god Kušuḫ being his father instead is also known. In individual texts, various deities could be referred to as his siblings, including Šauška, Tašmišu, and Aranzaḫ. His wife was Ḫepat, a goddess originally worshipped in Aleppo at some point incorporated into the Hurrian pantheon. Their children were Šarruma, Allanzu, and Kunzišalli. Other deities believed to belong to the court of Teshub included Tenu, Pentikalli, the bulls Šeri and Ḫurri, and the mountain gods Namni and Ḫazzi. Members of his entourage were typically enumerated in so-called kaluti, Hurrian offering lists. God lists indicate that Teshub could be recognized as the equivalent of other weather gods worshipped in Mesopotamia and further west in Syria, including Adad and Ugaritic Baal. In Anatolia he also influenced Hittite Tarḫunna and Luwian Tarḫunz, though all of these gods were also worshipped separately from each other.” ref

“The worship of Teshub is first attested in the Ur III period, with the early evidence including Hurrian theophoric names and in a royal inscription from Urkesh. Later sources indicate that his main cult center was the city of Kumme, which has not yet been located with certainty. His other major sacred city was Arrapha, the capital of an eponymous kingdom located in the proximity of modern Kirkuk in Iraq. Both of these cities were regarded as religious centers of supraregional significance, and a number of references to Mesopotamian rulers occasionally sending offerings to them are known. In the Mitanni empire, the main site associated with him was Kaḫat in northern Syria. In Kizzuwatna in southeastern Turkey he was worshipped in Kummanni. Furthermore, due to Hurrian cultural influence, he came to be viewed as the weather god of Aleppo. He was also worshipped in many other Hurrian cities, and in the second half of the second millennium BCE, he was the deity most commonly invoked in Hurrian theophoric names, with numerous examples identified in texts from Nuzi. He is also attested as a commonly worshipped deity in the Ugaritic texts, which indicate that Hurrian and local elements were interconnected in the religious practice of this city. Additionally, he was incorporated into Hittite religion and Luwian religion. His hypostasis associated with Aleppo attained particular importance in this context.” ref

“Multiple Hurrian myths focused on Teshub are known. Most of them are preserved in Hittite translations, though the events described in them reflect Hurrian, rather than Hittite, theology. Many of them focus on Teshub’s rise to the position of the king of the gods and his conflict with Kumarbi and his allies, such as the sea monster Ḫedammu, the stone giant Ullikummi, or the personified sea. These texts are conventionally referred to as the Kumarbi Cycle, though it has been pointed out that Teshub is effectively the main character in all of them, leading to occasional renaming proposals. Teshub is also a major character in the Song of Release, whose plot focuses on his efforts to secure the liberation of the inhabitants of Igingalliš from Ebla. Two of the preserved passages additionally deal with his meetings with Ishara, the tutelary goddess of the latter city, and Allani, the queen of the underworld. Interpretation of the narrative as a whole and its individual episodes remains a matter of scholarly debate. Additional references to him have been identified in a number of literary texts focused on human heroes, including the tale of Appu and the Hurrian adaptation of the Epic of Gilgamesh.” ref

“Depictions of Teshub are rare. The identification of individual weather gods in the art of the ancient Near East is considered difficult, and according to Albert Dietz in many cases is outright impossible. It has been suggested that Teshub was typically depicted dressed in a short skirt and pointed shoes, sometimes standing on a bull, mountains, or mountain gods. According to Volkert Haas, in glyptic art from Nuzi, he is depicted holding a three-pronged lightning bolt and a curved sword. Textual sources indicate he was believed to travel in a chariot drawn by two bulls. A second animal associated with him might have been the eagle.” ref

“In Hittite art, all weather gods, among them Teshub, were depicted similarly, with long hair and beard, dressed in conical headdress decorated with horns, a kilt and shoes with upturned toe area, and with a mace either resting on the shoulder or held in a smiting position. In the Yazılıkaya sanctuary, Teshub is portrayed holding a three-pronged lightning bolt in his hand and standing on two mountains, possibly to be identified as Namni and Ḫazzi. He is also depicted on a Neo-Hittite relief from Malatya, where he rides in his chariot drawn with bulls and is armed with a triple lightning bolt. Frans Wiggermann assumes that some depictions of a weather god accompanied by a naked goddess might represent Teshub and an unidentified deity, rather than Mesopotamian Adad and Shala. A distinct iconography is attested for the weather god of Aleppo, who could be identified as Teshub. His attribute was an eagle-shaped chariot. It has been suggested that its form was meant to reflect the belief that this vehicle was as fast as the bird it was patterned after and its ability to travel across the sky.” ref

“Teshub was considered analogous to the Mesopotamian weather god, Adad. A degree of syncretism between them occurred across northern Syria and Upper Mesopotamia in the second millennium BCE due to the proliferation of new Hurrian dynasties, and eventually the rise of the empire of Mitanni, but its precise development is not possible to study yet due to lack of sources which could be a basis for case studies. While Hurrian rulers are not absent from sources from the Old Babylonian period, they attained greater relevance from the sixteenth century onwards, replacing the formerly predominant Amorite dynasties. As a result of this process, Teshub came to be regarded as the weather god of Aleppo. However, as Semitic languages continued to be spoken across the region, both names of weather gods continued to be used across the middle Euphrates area. While the equivalence between Teshub and Adad is not attested in the Mesopotamian god list An = Anum, he is directly referred to as one of his foreign counterparts, specifically that linked to Subartu, in another similar text, K 2100 (CT 25, 16–17). In a single passage from the Song of Ḫedammu Teshub is addressed with the title “canal inspector of mankind”, which most likely originates in the Babylonian milieu.” ref

“Anu’s status as the father of Teshub also mirrors Mesopotamian tradition. This idea might have reached the Hurrians as early as in the Akkadian period. Daniel Schwemer notes it is possible that in turn the tradition according to which Adad was a son of Dagan was influenced by Hurrian religion, and was meant to mirror the connection between their Hurrian counterparts, Teshub and Kumarbi, and argues it is “questionable” if it was envisioned similarly before the arrival of the Hurrians. According to Lluís Feliu, while a father-son relationship between Dagan and the weather god is only directly attested in Ugarit, it can be assumed it is already implicit in Old Babylonian texts. Remnants of the period of Hurrian cultural influence are also still visible in a number of Neo-Assyrian traditions pertaining to Adad. The Tākultu texts indicate that his bulls Šeri and Ḫurri were incorporated into the circle of deities associated with Adad in both Assur and Kurbail.” ref 

“The fact that he was invoked alongside Ishtar in contracts is presumed to reflect the association between Teshub and Šauška. Beate Pongratz-Leisten argues an example of Hurrian mythology being reflected in an association between these Mesopotamian deities is already present in a curse formula of Adad-nirari I. At the same time it is considered implausible to assume that the widespread veneration of Adad attested in Assyria in the Middle Assyrian period and later was the result of Hurrian influence, and most likely it should be instead interpreted as a case of cultural continuity, as evidenced by the broad distribution of the evidence for worship of Adad of Assur, attested even in Hittite sources.” ref

“In Ugarit, Teshub was identified with the local weather god, Baal. It is presumed that the latter developed through the replacement of the main name of the weather god by his epithet on the Mediterranean coast in the fifteenth century BCE. In modern scholarship, comparisons have been made between myths focused on their respective struggles for kingship among the gods. While Baal does not directly fight against El, the senior god in the Ugaritic pantheon, the relationship between them has nonetheless been compared to the hostility between their Hurrian counterparts, Kumarbi and Teshub. Additionally, similarly to how Baal fought Yam, god of the sea, the Kiaše was also counted among Teshub’s mythical adversaries, and both battles were associated with the same mountain, Ḫazzi. However, myths about Baal also contain elements which find no parallel in these focused on Teshub, such as the confrontation with Mot, the personification of death, and his temporary death resulting from it. In contrast with Teshub, Baal also did not have a wife, and in Ugarit Ḫepat was seemingly recognized as a counterpart of Pidray, who was regarded as his daughter, rather than spouse.” ref

“For uncertain reasons, a trilingual edition of the Weidner god list from Ugarit equates Teshub and Baal not only with each other, but also with the Mesopotamian goddess Imzuanna. As her character was dissimilar, Aaron Tugendhaft has suggested that this connection might be an example of scribal word play, as the first sign of Imzuanna’s name is identical with the sumerogram IM used to represent names of weather gods. He concludes that it is unlikely the list can be used as a point of reference for either Hurrian or Ugaritic theology. It has been argued that the theonyms Teshub and Baal were both used interchangeably to refer to the local weather god in Emar. However, most likely, his principal name in this city was Adad, and Baal served only as an appellative. It is possible that in the local pantheon, the relationship between him and Ashtart was imagined similar to the bond between Teshub and Šauška in Hurrian mythology, as evidence for alleged consort relation between them is lacking.” ref

“In Kummanni in Kizzuwatna, Teshub was identified with the local god Manuzi. The latter was regarded as the spouse of the Hurrian goddess Lelluri. Starting in the Middle Hittite period, the Hittites, due to growing Hurrian influence on their culture, came to associate Teshub with their weather god, Tarḫunna. The character of the Luwian weather god, Tarḫunz, also came to be influenced by the Teshub. A factor facilitating interchange of traits between these Anatolian weather gods, their Hurrian counterpart, and other weather deities, such as Hattian Taru and Mesopotamian Adad, was the use of the same sumerogram to represent their names. In some cases, Hittites adopted Hurrian texts focused on Teshub, including hymns, prayer,s and myths, but substituted his name for that of their own analogous god. Sources such as ritual texts pertaining to the worship of Šauška in Šamuha instead preserve cases of what, according to Piotr Taracha, can be described as interpretatio hurritica, namely referring to various Anatolian weather gods with the name Teshub. However, as noted by Gary Beckman, full conflation of deities was rare in Hittite religion, and generally should be considered “late and exceptional”, with individual weather gods maintaining separate identities.” ref

“Teshub’s bulls were incorporated alongside him into the Hittite pantheon, but it is possible the image of a weather god travelling in a chariot drawn by bulls was not present in Hittite culture exclusively due to Hurrian influence, as the bull was already the symbolic animal of the weather god earlier, in the Old Hittite period. While in Hittite texts postdating the introduction of Hurrian deities, Teshub might appear alongside Šuwaliyat, who corresponded to Tašmišu, there is no evidence that a connection existed between this Anatolian god and Tarḫunna in earlier periods. Their juxtaposition was influenced by traditions imported from Kizzuwatna. In order to reconcile the standard Hittite pantheon and the dynastic pantheon including Hurrian deities, attempts have also been made by Hittite court theologians to equate Ḫepat and the Sun goddess of Arinna, as attested for example in a prayer of Puduḫepa, but according to Piotr Taracha it is implausible that these ideas found support among the general populace.” ref

“In the first millennium BCE, the identification between Teshub and Tarḫunz is implicitly attested in texts from Tabal, where the latter came to be regarded as the husband of Ḫepat. However, according to Manfred Hutter it is not possible to speak of “Luwianized” form of the worship of this goddess in earlier periods. Through Luwian influence she was worshipped alongside Tarḫunz in Carchemish as well, but she was not incorporated into the religion of the Arameans and eventually gradually disappeared from sources from Syria over the course of the eighth and seventh centuries BCE. It is also possible that the echoes of the myth about Teshub’s birth are preserved in a hieroglyphic Luwian inscription from Arsuz, which names the male deity Kumarma as Tarḫunz’s mother similarly to how a Hurrian hymn refers to Kumarbi as Teshub’s mother due to the circumstances of his birth.” ref

Baal with Thunderbolt

“A stela depicting the Ugaritic weather god, Baal (or Hadad), who could be associated with Teshub.” ref, ref

“Baal with Thunderbolt or the Baal stele is a white limestone bas-relief stele from the ancient kingdom of Ugarit in northwestern Syria. The stele was discovered in 1932, about 20 metres (66 ft) from the Temple of Baal in the acropolis of Ugarit. The stele, carved into the white limestone, is wider at the base and measures 142 by 50 centimetres (56 in × 20 in). It depicts a large standing male figure representing Baal, and a smaller male figure that is thought to be the king of Ugarit. The central figure in the stele, Baal, is shown facing to the right and standing on a large pedestal. The pedestal bears carved representations of Baal’s spheres of power, the mountains, and the sea.” ref

“Baal is shown with a raised right hand brandishing a club or a battle-mace overhead. His left hand is stretched in front of him and holds a thunderbolt in the shape of a spearhead that extends towards the ground. The shaft is in the form of a plant, likely a cultivated grain that would be nourished by the storm. The bearded god is shown wearing a helmet decorated with bull’s horns, from under which his braided hair falls over his back and his right shoulder. Baal is shown clad only in a kilt with striped decorations. The kilt is held by a finely carved, wide belt that also holds a curved dagger. Between the spear and the god a smaller figure is depicted standing on a horned altar. The smaller figure, most probably representing the king of Ugarit, is shown with a bare head and wearing ceremonial dress. The king’s arms are clasped together in prayer, and are hidden under a robe trimmed with braid.” ref

“The stele is interpreted as showing the king receiving divine protection from the god Baal. Additionally, Baal is shown thrusting a spear of vegetation into the ground from the sky, symbolizing the necessity of the storm for a later harvest. Despite the close relationship between the king and the god depicted in the stele, the difference in size between the two figures is interpreted by historian Mark S. Smith as contrasting the power and glory of Baal with the “relative weakness of the king.” Baal’s fertility attributes are represented by the horned helmet, and the plant-shaped lightning rod he holds in his hand. According to historian Alberto Green, Baal is portrayed as a “vigorous, young, graceful, athletic deity marching forward.” ref

Baal

“Baal (/ˈbeɪ.əl, ˈbɑː.əl/), or Baʻal, was a title and honorific meaning ‘owner’ or ‘lord‘ in the Northwest Semitic languages spoken in the Levant during antiquity. From its use among people, it came to be applied to gods. Scholars previously associated the theonym with solar cults and with a variety of unrelated patron deities, but inscriptions have shown that the name Ba’al was particularly associated with the storm and fertility god Hadad and his local manifestations. The Hebrew Bible includes use of the term in reference to various Levantine deities, often with application towards Hadad, who was decried as a false god. That use was taken over into Christianity and Islam, sometimes under the form Beelzebub in demonology. The Ugaritic god Baal (𐎁𐎓𐎍) is the protagonist of one of the lengthiest surviving epics from the ancient Near East, the Baal Cycle.” ref

“Ba’al’s widely used epithet is “rider (or mounter) of the clouds.” (rkb ʿrpt, cf. rkb bʿrbt in Ps. 68:5; Ugaritic rkb ʿrpt.) These are related to Zeus’s “gatherer of the clouds” and Yahweh’s “rider of the heavens.” Like the English word ride, rkb has equine and sexual uses. The spelling of the English term “Baal” derives from the Greek Báal (Βάαλ) which appears in the New Testament and Septuagint, and from its Latinized form Baal, which appears in the Vulgate. These forms in turn derive from the vowel-less Northwest Semitic form BʿL (Phoenician and Punic: 𐤁𐤏𐤋). The word’s biblical senses as a Phoenician deity and false gods generally were extended during the Protestant Reformation to denote any idols, icons of the saints, or the Catholic Church generally. In such contexts, it follows the anglicized pronunciation and usually omits any mark between its two As. In close transliteration of the Semitic name, the ayin is represented, as Baʿal.” ref

“In the Northwest Semitic languages—Ugaritic, Phoenician, Hebrew, Amorite, and Aramaic—the word baʿal signified ‘owner‘ and, by extension, ‘lord’, a ‘master’, or ‘husband’. Cognates include the Akkadian Bēlu (𒂗), Amharic bal (ባል), and Arabic baʿl (بعل). Báʿal (בַּעַל) and baʿl still serve as the words for ‘husband’ in modern Hebrew and Arabic, respectively. They also appear in some contexts concerning the ownership of things or the possession of traits. The feminine form is baʿalah (Hebrew: בַּעֲלָה; Arabic: بَعْلَة), meaning ‘mistress’ in the sense of a female owner or lady of the house, and still serving as a rare word for ‘wife’. Suggestions in early modern scholarship also included comparison with the Celtic god Belenus. However, this is now widely rejected by contemporary scholars.” ref

“Like En in Sumerian, the Akkadian bēlu and Northwest Semitic baʿal (as well as its feminine form baʿalah) were used as a title of various deities in the Mesopotamian and Semitic pantheons. Only a definitive article, genitive or epithet, or context could establish which particular god was meant. Baʿal was also used as a proper name by the third millennium BCE, when he appears in a list of deities at Abu Salabikh. Most modern scholarship asserts that this Baʿal—usually distinguished as “The Lord” (הבעל, Ha-Baʿal)—was identical with the storm and fertility god Hadad; it also appears in the form Baʿal Haddu. Scholars propose that, as the cult of Hadad increased in importance, his true name came to be seen as too holy for any but the high priest to speak aloud and the alias “Lord” (“Baʿal”) was used instead, as “Bel” was used for Marduk among the Babylonians and “Adonai” for Yahweh among the Israelites. A minority propose that Baʿal was a native Canaanite deity whose cult was identified with or absorbed aspects of Adad‘s. Regardless of their original relationship, by the 1st millennium BCE, the two were distinct: Hadad was worshiped by the Aramaeans and Baʿal by the Phoenicians and other Canaanites.” ref

“Baʿal is well-attested in surviving inscriptions and was popular in theophoric names throughout the Levant but he is usually mentioned along with other gods, “his own field of action being seldom defined”. Nonetheless, Ugaritic records show him as a weather god, with particular power over lightning, wind, rain, and fertility. The dry summers of the area were explained as Baʿal’s time in the underworld, and his return in autumn was said to have caused the storms that revived the land. Thus, the worship of Baʿal in Canaan—where he eventually supplanted El as the leader of the gods and patron of kingship—was connected to the region’s dependence on rainfall for its agriculture, unlike Egypt and Mesopotamia, which focused on irrigation from their major rivers. Anxiety about water availability for crops and trees increased the importance of his cult, which focused attention on his role as a rain god. He was also called upon during battle, showing that he was thought to intervene actively in the world of man, unlike the more aloof El. The Lebanese city of Baalbeck was named after Baal. Alternatively, Ba’ al is a divine co-regent with El, where El was the executive while Ba’ al was the sustainer of the cosmos.” ref

“The Baʿal of Ugarit was the epithet of Hadad, but as time passed, the epithet became the god’s name while Hadad became the epithet. Baʿal was usually said to be the son of Dagan, but appears as one of the sons of El in Ugaritic sources. Both Baʿal and El were associated with the bull in Ugaritic texts, as they symbolized both strength and fertility. He held special enmity against snakes, both on their own and as representatives of Yammu (lit. “Sea”), the Canaanite sea god and river god. He fought the Tannin (Tunnanu), the “Twisted Serpent” (Bṯn ʿqltn), “Lotan the Fugitive Serpent” (Ltn Bṯn Brḥ, the biblical Leviathan), and the “Mighty One with Seven Heads” (Šlyṭ D.šbʿt Rašm). Baʿal’s conflict with Yammu is now generally regarded as the prototype of the vision recorded in the 7th chapter of the biblical Book of Daniel. As vanquisher of the sea, the Canaanites and Phoenicians regarded Baʿal as the patron of sailors and sea-going merchants. As vanquisher of Mot, the Canaanite death god, he was known as Baʿal Rāpiʾuma (Bʿl Rpu) and regarded as the leader of the Rephaim (Rpum), the ancestral spirits, particularly those of ruling dynasties.” ref

“From Canaan, worship of Baʿal spread to Egypt by the Middle Kingdom and throughout the Mediterranean following the waves of Phoenician colonization in the early 1st millennium BCE. He was described with diverse epithets, and before Ugarit was rediscovered, these were supposed to refer to distinct local gods. However, as explained by Day, the texts at Ugarit revealed that they were considered “local manifestations of this particular deity, analogous to the local manifestations of the Virgin Mary in the Roman Catholic Church“. In those inscriptions, he is frequently described as “Victorious Baʿal” (Aliyn or Ảlỉyn Baʿal), “Mightiest one” (Aliy or ʾAly) or “Mightiest of the Heroes” (Aliy Qrdm), “The Powerful One” (Dmrn), and in his role as patron of the city “Baʿal of Ugarit” (Baʿal Ugarit). As Baʿal Zaphon (Baʿal Ṣapunu), he was particularly associated with his palace atop Jebel Aqra (the ancient Mount Ṣapānu and classical Mons Casius). He is also mentioned as “Winged Baʿal” (Bʿl Knp) and “Baʿal of the Arrows” (Bʿl Ḥẓ). Phoenician and Aramaic inscriptions describe “Baʿal of the Mace” (Bʿl Krntryš), “Baʿal of the Lebanon” (Bʿl Lbnn), “Baʿal of Sidon” (Bʿl Ṣdn), Bʿl Ṣmd, “Baʿal of the Heavens” (Baʿal Shamem or Shamayin), Baʿal ʾAddir (Bʿl ʾdr), Baʿal Hammon (Baʿal Ḥamon), Bʿl Mgnm.” ref

“Baʿal Hammon was worshipped in the Tyrian colony of Carthage as their supreme god. It is believed that this position developed in the 5th century BCE following the severing of its ties to Tyre following the 480 BCE Battle of Himera. Like Hadad, Baʿal Hammon was a fertility god. Inscriptions about Punic deities tend to be rather uninformative, though, and he has been variously identified as a moon god and as Dagan, the grain god. Rather than the bull, Baʿal Hammon was associated with the ram and depicted with his horns. The archaeological record seems to bear out accusations in Roman sources that the Carthaginians burned their children as human sacrifices to him. He was worshipped as Baʿal Karnaim (“Lord of the Two Horns”), particularly at an open-air sanctuary at Jebel Bu Kornein (“Two-Horn Hill”) across the bay from Carthage. His consort was the goddess Tanit.” ref

“The epithet Hammon is obscure. Most often, it is connected with the NW Semitic ḥammān (“brazier“) and associated with a role as a sun god. Renan and Gibson linked it to Hammon (modern Umm el-‘Amed between Tyre in Lebanon and Acre in Israel) and Cross and Lipiński to Haman or Khamōn, the classical Mount Amanus and modern Nur Mountains, which separate northern Syria from southeastern Cilicia. “Baʿal (בַּעַל) appears about 90 times in the Hebrew Bible in reference to various gods. The priests of the Canaanite Baʿal are mentioned numerous times, most prominently in the First Book of Kings. Many scholars believe that this describes Jezebel‘s attempt to introduce the worship of the Baʿal of Tyre, Melqart, to the Israelite capital Samaria in the 9th century BCE. Against this, Day argues that Jezebel’s Baʿal was more probably Baʿal Shamem, the Lord of the Heavens, a title most often applied to Hadad, who is also often titled just Ba‘al.” ref

“1 Kings 18 records an account of a contest between the prophet Elijah and Jezebel’s priests. Both sides offered a sacrifice to their respective gods: Ba’al failed to light his followers’ sacrifice while Yahweh‘s heavenly fire burnt Elijah’s altar to ashes, even after it had been soaked with water. The observers then followed Elijah’s instructions to slay the priests of Baʿal, after which it began to rain, showing Yahweh’s mastery over the weather. Other references to the priests of Baʿal describe their burning of incense in prayer and their offering of sacrifice while adorned in special vestments.” ref

“The title baʿal was a synonym in some contexts of the Hebrew adon (“Lord”) and adonai (“My Lord”) still used as aliases of the Lord of Israel Yahweh. According to some scholars, the early Hebrews did use the names Baʿal (“Lord”) and Baʿali (“My Lord”) in reference to the Lord of Israel, just as Baʿal farther north designated the Lord of Ugarit or Lebanon. This occurred both directly and as the divine element of some Hebrew theophoric names. However, according to others it is not certain that the name Baal was definitely applied to Yahweh in early Israelite history. The component Baal in proper names is mostly applied to worshippers of Baal, or descendants of the worshippers of Baal. Names including the element Baʿal presumably in reference to Yahweh include the judge Gideon (also known as Jerubaʿal, lit. “The Lord Strives”), Saul‘s son Eshbaʿal (“The Lord is Great”), and David‘s son Beeliada (“The Lord Knows”). The name Bealiah (“The Lord is Jah“; “Yahweh is Baʿal”) combined the two. However, John Day states that as far as the names Eshba’al, Meriba’al, and Beeliada (that is Baaliada), are concerned, it is not certain whether they simply allude to the Canaanite god Ba’al, or are intended to equate Yahweh with Ba’al, or have no connection to Ba’al.” ref

“It was the program of Jezebel, in the 9th century BCE, to introduce into Israel’s capital city of Samaria her Phoenician worship of Baal as opposed to the worship of Yahweh that made the name anathema to the Israelites.

At first the name Baal was used by the Jews for their God without discrimination, but as the struggle between the two religions developed, the name Baal was given up by the Israelites as a thing of shame, and even names like Jerubbaal were changed to Jerubbosheth: Hebrew bosheth means “shame.” ref

“Eshbaʿal became Ish-bosheth and Meribaʿal became Mephibosheth, but other possibilities also occurred. Gideon’s name Jerubaʿal was mentioned intact but glossed as a mockery of the Canaanite god, implying that he strove in vain. Direct use of Baʿali continued at least as late as the time of the prophet Hosea, who reproached the Israelites for doing so. Brad E. Kelle has suggested that references to cultic sexual practices in the worship of Baal, in Hosea 2, are evidence of an historical situation in which Israelites were either giving up Yahweh worship for Baal, or blending the two. Hosea’s references to sexual acts being metaphors for Israelite “apostasy.” ref

“Brian P. Irwin argues that “Baal” in northern Israelite traditions is a form of Yahweh that was rejected as foreign by the prophets. In southern Israelite traditions, “Baal” was a god that was worshipped in Jerusalem. His worshippers saw him as compatible or identical with Yahweh and honored him with human sacrifices and fragrant meal offerings. Eventually, the Chronicler(s) disapproved of both “Baals” whilst the Deuteronomists used “Baals” for any god they disapproved of. Likewise, Mark S. Smith believes Yahweh was more likely to be inspired by Baal rather than El, since both are stormy divine warriors and lack the pacifistic traits of El according to the Ugaritic texts and the Hebrew Bible.” ref

“Baʿal Berith (“Lord of the Covenant“) was a god worshipped by the Israelites when they “went astray” after the death of Gideon according to the Hebrew Scriptures. The same source relates that Gideon’s son Abimelech went to his mother’s kin at Shechem and received 70 shekels of silver “from the House of Baʿal Berith” to assist in killing his 70 brothers from Gideon’s other wives. An earlier passage had made Shechem the scene of Joshua‘s covenant between all the tribes of Israel and “El Yahweh, our god of Israel“ and a later one describes it as the location of the “House of El Berith”. It is thus unclear whether the false worship of the “Baʿalim” being decried is the worship of a new idol or rites and teachings placing Yahweh as a mere local god within a larger pantheon. The Hebrew Scriptures record the worship of Baʿal threatening Israel from the time of the Judges until the monarchy. However, during the period of Judges such worship seems to have been an occasional deviation from a deeper and more constant worship of Yahweh:

Throughout all the stories of Judges the popular faith in YHWH runs as a powerful current. This faith raises the judges, and inspires poets, prophets, and Nazirites. … Worship of Baals and Ashtoreths has been schematically interspersed between these chapters, but no trace of a vital, popular belief in any foreign gods can be detected in the stories themselves. Baal prophets appeared in Israel centuries later; but during the age of the judges when Israel is supposed to have been most deeply affected by the religion of Canaan, there are no Baal priests or prophets, nor any other intimation of a vital effect of polytheism in Israel’s life.” ref

“The Deuteronomist and the present form of Jeremiah seem to phrase the struggle as monolatry or monotheism against polytheism. Yahweh is frequently identified in the Hebrew scriptures with El Elyon, however, this was after a conflation with El in a process of religious syncretism. ’El (Hebrew: אל) became a generic term meaning “god”, as opposed to the name of a worshipped deity, and epithets such as El Shaddai came to be applied to Yahweh alone, while Baal’s nature as a storm and weather god became assimilated into Yahweh’s own identification with the storm. In the next stage the Yahwistic religion separated itself from its Canaanite heritage, first by rejecting Baal-worship in the 9th century, then through the 8th to 6th centuries with prophetic condemnation of Baal, sun-worship, worship on the “high places”, practices pertaining to the dead, and other matters.” ref

ref

Hadad

“Hadad (Ugaritic: 𐎅𐎄, romanized: Haddu), Haddad, Adad (Akkadian: 𒀭𒅎 DIM, pronounced as Adād), or Iškur (Sumerian) was the storm- and rain-god in the Canaanite and ancient Mesopotamian religions. He was attested in Ebla as “Hadda” in c. 2500 BCE or around 4,500 years ago. From the Levant, Hadad was introduced to Mesopotamia by the Amorites, where he became known as the Akkadian (Assyrian–Babylonian) god Adad. Adad and Iškur are usually written with the logogram 𒀭𒅎 dIM – the same symbol used for the Hurrian god Teshub. Hadad was also called Rimon/Rimmon, Pidar, Rapiu, Baal-Zephon, or often simply Baʿal (Lord); however, the latter title was also used for other gods. The bull was the symbolic animal of Hadad. He appeared bearded, often holding a club and thunderbolt and wearing a bull-horned headdress. Hadad was equated with the Greek god Zeus, the Roman god Jupiter (Jupiter Dolichenus), as well as the Babylonian Bel. The Baal Cycle or Epic of Baal is a collection of stories about the Canaanite Baal, also referred to as Hadad. It was composed between 1400 and 1200 BCE and rediscovered in the excavation of Ugarit, an ancient city in modern-day Syria. The storm-god Adad and the sun-god Shamash jointly became the patron gods of oracles and divination in Mesopotamia.” ref

“In Akkadian, Adad is also known as Rammanu (“Thunderer”) cognate with Imperial Aramaic: רעמא Raˁmā and Hebrew: רַעַם Raˁam, a byname of Hadad. Many scholars formerly took Rammanu to be an independent Akkadian god, but he was later identified with Hadad. Though originating in northern Mesopotamia, Adad was identified by the same Sumerogram dIM that designated Iškur in the south. His worship became widespread in Mesopotamia after the First Babylonian dynasty. A text dating from the reign of Ur-Ninurta characterizes the two sides of Adad/Iškur as threatening in his stormy rage, and benevolent in giving life.” ref

“Iškur appears in the list of gods found at Shuruppak but was of far less importance, perhaps because storms and rain were scarce in Sumer and agriculture there depended on irrigation instead. The gods Enlil and Ninurta also had storm god features that diminished Iškur’s distinct role, and he sometimes appears as the assistant or companion of these more prominent gods. When Enki distributed the destinies, he made Iškur inspector of the cosmos. In one litany, Iškur is proclaimed again and again as “great radiant bull, your name is heaven” and also called son of Anu, lord of Karkara; twin-brother of Enki, lord of abundance, lord who rides the storm, lion of heaven.” ref

“In other texts, Adad/Iškur is sometimes the son of the moon god Nanna/Sin by Ningal and brother of Utu/Shamash and Inanna/Ishtar. He is also sometimes described as the son of Enlil. The bull was portrayed as Adad/Iškur’s sacred animal starting in the Old Babylonian period (early 2nd millennium BCE). Adad/Iškur’s consort (both in early Sumerian and the much later Assyrian texts) was the grain goddess Shala, who is also sometimes associated with the god Dagānu. She was also called Gubarra in the earliest texts. The fire god Gibil (Girra in Akkadian) is sometimes the son of Iškur and Shala.” ref

“He is identified with the Anatolian storm-god Teshub, whom the Mitannians designated with the same Sumerogram dIM. Occasionally he is identified with the Amorite god Amurru. The Babylonian center of Adad/Iškur’s cult was Karkara in the south, his chief temple being É.Kar.kar.a; his spouse Shala was worshipped in a temple named É.Dur.ku. In Assyria, Adad was developed along with his warrior aspect. During the Middle Assyrian Empire, from the reign of Tiglath-Pileser I (1115-1077 BCE), Adad had a double sanctuary with Anu in Assur, and the two are often associated in invocations. The name Adad and various alternate forms (Dadu, Bir, Dadda) are often found in Assyrian king names.

“Adad/Iškur presents two aspects in hymns, incantations, and votive inscriptions. On the one hand, he brings rain in due season to fertilize the land; on the other, he sends storms to wreak havoc and destruction. He is pictured on monuments and cylinder seals (sometimes with a horned helmet) with the lightning and the thunderbolt (sometimes in the form of a spear), and in hymns his sombre aspects predominate. His association with the sun-god Shamash, with the two deities alternating in the control of nature, tends to imbue him with some traits of a solar deity. According to Alberto Green, descriptions of Adad starting in the Kassite period and in the region of Mari emphasize his destructive, stormy character and his role as a fearsome warrior deity, in contrast to Iškur’s more peaceful and pastoral character.” ref

“Shamash and Adad jointly became the gods of oracles and divination, invoked in all the ceremonies to determine the divine will: through inspecting a sacrificial animal’s liver, the action of oil bubbles in a basin of water, or the movements of the heavenly bodies. They are similarly addressed in royal annals and votive inscriptions as bele biri (lords of divination). In religious texts, Ba‘al/Hadad is the lord of the sky who governs rain and crops, master of fertility and protector of life and growth. His absence brings drought, starvation, and chaos. Texts of the Baal Cycle from Ugarit are fragmentary and assume much background knowledge.” ref

“The supreme god El resides on Mount Lel (Night?) where the assembly of the gods meets. At the beginning of the cycle, there appears to a feud between El and Ba‘al. El appoints one of his sons, called both prince Yamm (Sea) and judge Nahar (River), as king over the gods and changes Yamm’s name from yw to mdd ’il (darling of El). El tells his son that he will have to drive off Ba‘al to secure the throne. In this battle, Ba‘al is somehow weakened, but the divine craftsman Kothar-wa-Khasis crafts two magic clubs for Ba’al as weapons that help Ba’al strike down Yamm, and Ba’al is supreme. ‘Athtart proclaims Ba‘al’s victory and salutes Ba‘al/Hadad as lrkb ‘rpt (Rider on the Clouds), a phrase applied by editors of modern English Bibles to Yahweh in Psalm 68.4. At ‘Athtart’s urging Ba‘al “scatters” Yamm and proclaims that he is dead and warmth is assured.” ref

“A later passage refers to Ba‘al’s victory over Lotan, the many-headed sea dragon. Due to gaps in the text, it is not known whether Lotan is another name for Yamm or a character in a similar story. These stories may have been allegories of crops threatened by the winds, storms, and floods from the Mediterranean sea. A palace is built for Ba‘al with silver, gold, and cedar wood from Mount Lebanon and Sirion. In his new palace, Ba‘al hosts a great feast for the other gods. When urged by Kothar-wa-Khasis, Ba’al reluctantly opens a window in his palace and sends forth thunder and lightning. He then invites Mot (Death, the god of drought and the underworld), another son of El, to join the feast.” ref

“But Mot, the eater of human flesh and blood, is insulted when offered only bread and wine. He threatens to break Ba‘al to pieces and swallow him, and even Ba‘al cannot stand against Death. Gaps here make interpretation dubious. It seems that by the advice of the sun goddess Shapash, Ba‘al mates with a heifer and dresses the resultant calf in his own clothes as a gift to Mot, and then himself prepares to go down to the underworld in the guise of a helpless shade. News of Ba‘al’s apparent death leads even El to mourn. Ba‘al’s sister ‘Anat finds Ba‘al’s corpse, presumably really the dead calf, and she buries the body with a funeral feast. The god ‘Athtar is appointed to take Ba‘al’s place, but he is a poor substitute. Meanwhile, ‘Anat finds Mot, cleaves him with a sword, burns him with fire, and throws his remains to the birds. But the earth is still cracked with drought until Shapsh fetches Ba‘al back. Seven years later, Mot returns and attacks Ba‘al, but the battle is quelled when Shapsh tells Mot that El now supports Ba’al. Mot surrenders to Ba‘al and recognizes him as king.” ref

“In the Amherst Papyrus, Baal Zephon (Hadad) is identified with the Egyptian god Horus: “May Baal from Zephon bless you”, Amherst Papyrus 63, 7:3 and in 11:13-14: “and from Zephon may Horus help us”. Classical sources translate this name as Zeus Kasios, since in Pelusium, the statue of Zeus Kasios was considered the image of Harpocrates (Horus the Child).[21] Zeus Casius had inherited some traits from Apollo as well. They also recall his conflict with Typhon over that mountain (Mount Casius on the Syrian-Turkish border or Casion near Pelusium in Egypt). The reason why Baal could be both identified with Horus and his rival Set; is because in Egypt the element of the storm was considered foreign as Set was a god of strangers and outsiders, thus because the Egyptians had no better alternative to identify their native god Set with another neighboring deity, they tentatively associated him with Hadad since he was a storm-god, but when the god Baal (Hadad) is not specifically attributed the traits of rain and thunder and is instead perceived as a god of the sky generically, which is what is embodied by his form “Baal Zaphon” as the chief deity who resides on the mountain (for example a 14th-century letter from the king of Ugarit to the Egyptian pharaoh places Baʿal Zaphon as equivalent to Amun also), in that case he’s more similar to the Egyptian Horus in that capacity (comparable to Baalshamin as well).” ref

“The different interpretation could also be based on the fact that Set had been associated with Hadad by the Hyksos. Most likely originally Set referred to another deity also addressed by the title “Baal” (one of the many; an example of this would be the Baal of Tyre) who happened to display storm-like traits especially in Egypt since they were foreign and as such duly emphasized; when instead his weather features probably weren’t all that prominent in other cultures who worshipped equivalents of him, but given that the only storm-god available for identification in Semitic culture was Hadad and in Hittite Sutekh (a war-god who’s been hypothesized to be an alternative name of Teshub, but it remains unclear), the traits matched the characteristics of the Egyptian deity, and an association between the two was considered plausible, also given by the fact that both the Hittites and Semitic Hyksos were foreigners in the Egyptian land who brought their gods with them, and their main god happened to display storm-like traits and was also associated with these foreigners who came to Egypt, a characteristic that would make him similar to the perception that the Egyptians had of Set. This would once again echo the mythological motif of a previous chief of the Pantheon who gets replaced by the new generation of deities represented by the younger ascendant ruler and newly appointed chief of the gods, as is the case also for the Hittite “Cycle of Kumarbi” where Teshub displaces the previously established father of the gods Kumarbi. In Amherst XII/15 the same identification as before is once again stated: “Baal from Zephon, Horus” (BT mn Şpn Hr).” ref

“In the second millennium BCE, the king of Yamhad or Halab (modern Aleppo), who claimed to be “beloved of Hadad”, received the tribute of statue of Ishtar from the king of Mari, to be displayed in the temple of Hadad in Halab Citadel. Hadad is called “the god of Aleppo” on a stele of the Assyrian king Shalmaneser I. The element Hadad appears in a number of theophoric names borne by kings of the region. Hadad son of Bedad, who defeated the Midianites in Moab, was the fourth king of Edom. Hadadezer (“Hadad-is-help”) was the Aramean king defeated by David. Later Aramean kings of Damascus seem to have habitually assumed the title of Ben-Hadad (son of Hadad). One was Ben-Hadad, the king of Aram whom the Judean king Asa sent to invade the northern Kingdom of Israel. A votive basalt stele from the 9th or 8th century, BCE found in Bredsh north of Aleppo, is dedicated to Melqart and bears the name Ben-Hadad, king of Aram. The seventh of the twelve sons of Ishmael is also named Hadad.” ref

“A set of related bynames include Aramaic rmn, Old South Arabic rmn, Hebrew rmwn, and Akkadian Rammānu (“Thunderer”), presumably originally vocalized as Ramān in Aramaic and Hebrew. The Hebrew spelling, rmwn with Masoretic vocalization Rimmôn, is identical with the Hebrew word meaning ‘pomegranate‘ and may be an intentional misspelling and/or parody of the deity’s original name. The word Hadad-rimmon (or Hadar-rimmon) in the phrase “the mourning of (or at) Hadad-rimmon“, has aroused much discussion. According to Jerome and the older Christian interpreters, the mourning is for something that occurred at a place called Hadad-rimmon (Maximianopolis) in the valley of Megiddo. This event was generally held to be the death of Josiah (or, as in the Targum, the death of Ahab at the hands of Hadadrimmon).” ref

“But even before the discovery of the Ugaritic texts, some suspected that Hadad-rimmon might be a dying-and-rising god like Adonis or Tammuz, perhaps even the same as Tammuz, and the allusion could then be to mournings for Hadad such as those of Adonis festivals. T. K. Cheyne pointed out that the Septuagint reads simply Rimmon, and argues that this may be a corruption of Migdon (Megiddo) and ultimately of Tammuz-Adon. He would render the verse, “In that day there shall be a great mourning in Jerusalem, as the mourning of the women who weep for Tammuz-Adon” (Adon means “lord”). No further evidence has come to light to resolve such speculations. In the Books of Kings, Jezebel – the wife of the Northern Israelite King Ahab promoted the cult of Ba’al in her adopted nation. John Day argues that Jezebel’s Baʿal was possibly Baʿal Shamem (Lord of the Heavens), a title most often applied to Hadad.” ref

Thor

“Thor (from Old Norse: Þórr) is a prominent god in Germanic paganism. In Norse mythology, he is a hammer-wielding god associated with lightning, thunder, storms, sacred groves and trees, strength, the protection of humankind, hallowing, and fertility. Besides Old Norse Þórr, the deity occurs in Old English as Thunor, in Old Frisian as Thuner, in Old Saxon as Thunar, and in Old High German as Donar, all ultimately stemming from the Proto-Germanic theonym *Þun(a)raz, meaning ‘Thunder’. Thor is a prominently mentioned god throughout the recorded history of the Germanic peoples, from the Roman occupation of regions of Germania, to the Germanic expansions of the Migration Period, to his high popularity during the Viking Age, when, in the face of the process of the Christianization of Scandinavia, emblems of his hammer, Mjölnir, were worn and Norse pagan personal names containing the name of the god bear witness to his popularity.” ref

“Narratives featuring Thor are most prominently attested in Old Norse, where Thor appears throughout Norse mythology. In stories recorded in medieval Iceland, Thor bears at least fifteen names, is the husband of the golden-haired goddess Sif, and the lover of the jötunn Járnsaxa. With Sif, Thor fathered the goddess (and possible valkyrie) Þrúðr; with Járnsaxa, he fathered Magni; with a mother whose name is not recorded, he fathered Móði, and he is the stepfather of the god Ullr. Thor is the son of Odin and Jörð, by way of his father Odin, he has numerous brothers, including Baldr. Thor has two servants, Þjálfi and Röskva, rides in a cart or chariot pulled by two goats, Tanngrisnir and Tanngnjóstr (whom he eats and resurrects), and is ascribed three dwellings (Bilskirnir, Þrúðheimr, and Þrúðvangr). Thor wields the hammer Mjölnir, wears the belt Megingjörð and the iron gloves Járngreipr, and owns the staff Gríðarvölr. Thor’s exploits, including his relentless slaughter of his foes and fierce battles with the monstrous serpent Jörmungandr—and their foretold mutual deaths during the events of Ragnarök—are recorded throughout sources for Norse mythology.” ref

“Into the modern period, Thor continued to be acknowledged in folklore throughout Germanic-speaking Europe. Thor is frequently referred to in place names, the day of the week Thursday bears his name (modern English Thursday derives from Old English thunresdaeġ, ‘Thunor’s day’), and names stemming from the pagan period containing his own continue to be used today, particularly in Scandinavia. Thor has inspired numerous works of art, and references to Thor appear in modern popular culture. Like other Germanic deities, veneration of Thor is revived in the modern period in Heathenry. The name Thor is derived from Norse mythology. Its medieval Germanic equivalents or cognates are Donar (Old High German), Þunor (Old English), Thuner (Old Frisian), Thunar (Old Saxon), and Þórr (Old Norse), the latter of which inspired the modern English form Thor.” ref

“Though Old Norse Þórr has only one syllable, it comes from an earlier Proto-Norse two-syllable form which can be reconstructed as *Þonarr (from an earlier *Þunaraz) and/or *Þunurr (from *Þunuraz), evidenced by the poems Hymiskviða and Þórsdrápa, and modern Elfdalian tųosdag ‘Thursday’, through the common Old Norse development of the sequence -unr- to -ór-. All Germanic forms of Thor’s name descend from Proto-Germanic, but there is debate as to precisely what form the name took at that early stage. The form *Þunuraz is suggested by Elfdalian tųosdag (‘Thursday’) and by a runic inscription from around 700 from Hallbjäns in Sundre, Gotland, which includes the sequence þunurþurus.” ref  

“Alternatively, the form *Þunaraz is attractive because it is identical to the name of the ancient Celtic god Taranus (by metathesis—switch of sounds—of an earlier *Tonaros, attested in the dative tanaro and the Gaulish river name Tanarus). Finally, the form *Þunraz has also been suggested by Hjalmar Lindroth (1917) and has the attraction of clearly containing the sequence -unr-, needed to explain the later form Þórr, although the similarity with Celtic theonym *Tonaros is lost.  According to John T. Koch, the form *Þunraz is from earlier pre-Germanic stage that predates Grim’s Law.” ref

“These Proto-Germanic forms are probably further related to the common Proto-Indo-European root for ‘thunder’ *(s)tenh₂-, also attested in the Latin epithet Tonans (attached to Jupiter) and the Vedic stanáyati (“thunders”). Scholar Peter Jackson argues that those theonyms may have emerged as the result of the fossilization of an original epithet (or epiclesis, i.e. invocational name) of the Proto-Indo-European thunder-god *Perkwunos, since the Vedic weather-god Parjanya is also called stanayitnú- (‘Thunderer’). The potentially perfect match between the thunder-gods *Tonaros and *Þunaraz, which both go back to a common form *ton(a)ros ~ *tṇros, is notable in the context of early Celtic–Germanic linguistic contacts, especially when added to other inherited terms with thunder attributes, such as *Meldunjaz–*meldo- (from *meldh– ‘lightning, hammer’, i.e. *Perkwunos‘ weapon) and *Fergunja–*Fercunyā (from *perkwun-iyā ‘wooded mountains’, i.e. *Perkwunos’ realm).” ref

“The English weekday name Thursday comes from Old English Þunresdæg, meaning ‘day of Þunor’, with influence from Old Norse Þórsdagr. The name is cognate with Old High German Donarestag. All of these terms derive from a Late Proto-Germanic weekday name along the lines of *Þunaresdagaz (‘Day of *Þun(a)raz‘), a calque of Latin Iovis dies (‘Day of Jove‘; compare modern Italian giovedì, French jeudi, Spanish jueves). By employing a practice known as interpretatio germanica during the Roman period, ancient Germanic peoples adopted the Latin weekly calendar and replaced the names of Roman gods with their own. Beginning in the Viking Age, personal names containing the theonym Þórr are recorded with great frequency, whereas no examples are known prior to this period. Þórr-based names may have flourished during the Viking Age as a defiant response to attempts at Christianization, similar to the widespread Viking Age practice of wearing Thor’s hammer pendants.” ref

“The first recorded instance of the name of the god appears upon the Nordendorf fibulae, a piece of jewelry created during the Migration Period and found in Bavaria. The item bears an Elder Futhark inscribed with the name Þonar (i.e. Donar), the southern Germanic form of Thor’s name. Around the second half of the 8th century, Old English texts mention Thunor (Þunor), which likely refers to a Saxon version of the god. In relation, Thunor is sometimes used in Old English texts to gloss Jupiter, the god may be referenced in the poem Solomon and Saturn, where the thunder strikes the devil with a “fiery axe”, and the Old English expression þunorrād (“thunder ride”) may refer to the god’s thunderous, goat-led chariot.” ref

“A 9th-century CE codex from Mainz, Germany, known as the Old Saxon Baptismal Vow, records the name of three Old Saxon gods, UUôden (Old Saxon “Wodan“), Saxnôte, and Thunaer, by way of their renunciation as demons in a formula to be repeated by Germanic pagans formally converting to Christianity. According to a near-contemporary account, the Christian missionary Saint Boniface felled an oak tree dedicated to “Jove” in the 8th century, the Donar’s Oak in the region of Hesse, Germany. The Kentish royal legend, probably 11th-century, contains the story of a villainous reeve of Ecgberht of Kent called Thunor, who is swallowed up by the earth at a place from then on known as þunores hlæwe (Old English ‘Thunor’s mound’). Gabriel Turville-Petre saw this as an invented origin for the placename demonstrating loss of memory that Thunor had been a god’s name.” ref

“The earliest records of the Germanic peoples were recorded by the Romans, and in these works Thor is frequently referred to—via a process known as interpretatio romana (where characteristics perceived to be similar by Romans result in identification of a non-Roman god as a Roman deity)—as either the Roman god Jupiter (also known as Jove) or the Greco-Roman god Hercules. The first clear example of this occurs in the Roman historian Tacitus‘s late first-century work Germania, where, writing about the religion of the Suebi (a confederation of Germanic peoples), he comments that “among the gods Mercury is the one they principally worship. They regard it as a religious duty to offer to him, on fixed days, human as well as other sacrificial victims.” ref

“Hercules and Mars they appease by animal offerings of the permitted kind” and adds that a portion of the Suebi also venerate “Isis“. In this instance, Tacitus refers to the god Odin as “Mercury“, Thor as “Hercules”, and the god Týr as “Mars“, and the identity of the Isis of the Suebi has been debated. In Thor’s case, the identification with the god Hercules is likely at least in part due to similarities between Thor’s hammer and Hercules’ club. In his Annals, Tacitus again refers to the veneration of “Hercules” by the Germanic peoples; he records a wood beyond the river Weser (in what is now northwestern Germany) as dedicated to him. A deity known as Hercules Magusanus was venerated in Germania Inferior; due to the Roman identification of Thor with Hercules, Rudolf Simek has suggested that Magusanus was originally an epithet attached to the Proto-Germanic deity *Þunraz.” ref

Horagalles

“In Sami shamanism, Horagalles, also written Hora Galles and Thora Galles and often equated with Tiermes or Aijeke (i.e. “grandfather or great grandfather”), is the thunder god. He is depicted as a wooden figure with a nail in the head and with a hammer, or occasionally on shaman drums, two hammers. Idols of Horagalles are made of wood and have a nail or spike and a piece of flint in the head. He has a hammer called Wetschera, Aijeke Wetschera, or Ajeke veċċera, “grandfather’s hammer.” Horagalles is the god of the sky, thunder and lightning, the rainbow, weather, oceans, and lakes, and rules over human life, health, and wellbeing. He punishes “hurtful demons” or “evil spirits” (i.e., trolls) who frequent the rocks and mountains; he destroys them with his lightning, shoots them with his bow, or dashes their brains out with his hammer. The rainbow is his bow, “Aijeke dauge.” ref

“On Sami shaman drums, Horagalles is occasionally depicted with a sledgehammer in one hand and a cross-hammer in the other, or symbolized by two crossed hammers. He made thunder and lightning with one hammer and withdrew them with the other to prevent harm to the Sami or their animals. The name Horagalles does not occur in older dictionaries of Sami languages, for instance, in the mid-19th century. He is often equated with Tiermes; in 1673, Johannes Scheffer, who did not use the name Horagalles, wrote that when Aijeke thundered, he was called Tiermes. There is considerable regional variation in the names; Horagalles (with its various spellings, including Thoragalles) is characteristically southern Sami, and the rainbow is referred to by a variety of names referring to thunder.” ref

“Early scholars noted the similarities between Horagalles and the Norse thunder-god Thor, and that some Sami called him Thoron or simply Thor, and were unsure which had influenced which. But the name Horagalles is now interpreted as a loanword from the Old Norse Þórr Karl, “the Old Man Thor,” “Thor, the Elder,” or “Thor fellow,” “Thor Karl” (possibly from Norwegian Torrekall), or Swedish Torsmannen, “the thunder man.” Horagalles’ consort is called Ravdna, and the red berries of the rowan tree are sacred to her. The name Ravdna resembles North Germanic names for the tree, such as Old Norse reynir, and according to the Prose Edda book Skáldskaparmál, the rowan is called “the salvation of Thor” because Thor once saved himself by clinging to it. It has therefore been theorized that the Norse goddess Sif, Thor’s wife, was once conceived of in the form of a rowan to which Thor clung.” ref

“Tiermes is a Sami god of thunder and rain, also called Aijeke or Ajeke and often identified with Horagalles. Tiermes is the god of the sky, thunder, lightning, the rainbow, weather, oceans, and lakes, and rules over human life, health, and well-being. He protects people and their animals from “hurtful demons” and “evil spirits” (i.e., trolls). According to the mid-18th century Cérémonies et coutumes religieuses de tous les peuples du monde, “Thiermes or Thoron” is the first in a trinity, of whom the other members are Storjunkare and Baivre or Jumala. He is also called Aijeke, “grandfather” or “great-grandfather”; in 1673 Johannes Scheffer wrote that when Aijeke thundered, he was called Tiermes.” ref

“The names of the god vary considerably between regions, with Tiermes and variants being commonly used among northern Sami and Horagalles and variants among southern Sami, The word “dierpmis” could be a loanword from a pre-finno-ugric substrate language. Pajonn is a Sami god of thunder. Other names and spelling variants include Bajann, Pajǟn, and Pajanolmai, found in Finnish as Pajainen, all derived from the word pad’d’i, meaning “above”. According to Zacharias Plantin, Pajonn is an alias of Doragass, which in turn is a distorted version of Horagalles.” ref

“For the Tungus, the term buga (also buya, boya, boga) refers to the greatest, omnipotent, eternal being. The same word also means either “sky” or “universe”, and may also refer to terms corresponding to “world” or “locality”. The word is not taboo and is used in common speech. According to Shirokogoroff, the term is an old one, and was not introduced by Christian missionaries. For the eastern Tungus, buga is a remote figure whom they have no description of, nor do their shamans connect with it/. The buga forms an exception in that it is one spirit that cannot be mastered by a shaman. Shirokogoroff states that all Tungus know how to pray/make sacrifices to buga, and that activity is done without the intercession of a shaman.” ref

“Furthermore, bugady are a tribe’s sacred places. Equivalent names for a supreme deity are Es (Ket language), Nga (Enets language), and Turum or Torym (Khanty language). The Tungus term ‘buga’ is similar to the Mongolian term bogdo (holy), Old Persian language baga (god), and the Kassite language bugas (god). The Even language term for the highest deity (the creator) is/was Nalban Omgo Ogyn Buga, the proper name in the same language is Hovky-Sovky; in the Evenk language the god’s name is Shavaky-Savaky. The “upper” and “lower” worlds in those people’s shamanic worldview are also referred to as Dulyn Buga and Harpy Buga. In a Tungusic creation myth Buga creates both the earth (using fire to create it within a watery void), as well as creating man and woman from fire, earth, iron, and water. In the myth, he is opposed by Buninka, a devil figure, who becomes responsible for evil persons after death.” ref

Damien Marie AtHope’s Art

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The broader definition of monotheism characterizes the traditions of Bábism, the Bahá’í Faith, Balinese Hinduism, Cao Dai (Caodaiism), Cheondoism (Cheondogyo), Christianity, Deism, Eckankar, Hindu sects such as Shaivism and Vaishnavism, Islam, Judaism, Mandaeism, Rastafari, Seicho no Ie, Sikhism, Tengrism (Tangrism), Tenrikyo (Tenriism), Yazidism, and Zoroastrianism, and elements of pre-monotheistic thought are found in early religions such as Atenism, ancient Chinese religion, and Yahwism. ref

Single God Religions (Monotheism) = “Man-o-theism” started around 4,000 years ago with the Great Sky Spirit/God Tiān (天)?

Could it be that the first monotheistic god was from Asia,

Not the Middle East around 4,000 years ago?

Monotheism is distinguished from henotheism, a religious system in which the believer worships one god without denying that others may worship different gods with equal validity, and monolatrism, the recognition of the existence of many gods but with the consistent worship of only one deity. Monotheism has been defined as the belief in the existence of only one god that created the world, is all-powerful, and intervenes in the world. A broader definition of monotheism is the belief in one god. A distinction may be made between exclusive monotheism, and both inclusive monotheism and pluriform (panentheistic) monotheism which, while recognizing various distinct gods, postulate some underlying unity. The broader definition of monotheism characterizes the traditions of Bábism, the Bahá’í Faith, Balinese Hinduism, Cao Dai (Caodaiism), Cheondoism (Cheondogyo), Christianity, Deism, Eckankar, Hindu sects such as Shaivism and Vaishnavism, Islam, Judaism, Mandaeism, Rastafari, Seicho no Ie, Sikhism, Tengrism (Tangrism), Tenrikyo (Tenriism), Yazidism, and Zoroastrianism, and elements of pre-monotheistic thought are found in early religions such as Atenism, ancient Chinese religion, and Yahwism.

Quasi-monotheistic claims of the existence of a universal deity date to the Late Bronze Age, with Akhenaten‘s Great Hymn to the Aten. A possible inclination towards monotheism emerged during the Vedic period in Iron-Age South Asia. The Rigveda exhibits notions of monism of the Brahman, particularly in the comparatively late tenth book, which is dated to the early Iron Age, e.g. in the Nasadiya sukta.

Since the 2,600 years ago, Zoroastrians have believed in the supremacy of one God above all: Ahura Mazda as the “Maker of All” and the first being before all others. Nonetheless, Zoroastrianism was not strictly monotheistic because it venerated other yazatas alongside Ahura Mazda. Ancient Hindu theology, meanwhile, was monist, but was not strictly monotheistic in worship because it still maintained the existence of many gods, who were envisioned as aspects of one supreme God, Brahman.

Numerous ancient Greek philosophers, including Xenophanes of Colophon and Antisthenes believed in a similar polytheistic monism that came close to monotheism, but fell short. Judaism was the first religion to conceive the notion of a personal monotheistic God within a monist context. The concept of ethical monotheism, which holds that morality stems from God alone and that its laws are unchanging, first occurred in Judaism, but is now a core tenet of most modern monotheistic religions, including Zoroastrianism, Christianity, Islam, Sikhism, and Bahá’í Faith. Around 2,800 years ago, the worship of YHWH in Israel was in competition with many other cults, described by the Yahwist faction collectively as Baals.

The oldest books of the Hebrew Bible reflect this competition, as in the books of Hosea and Nahum, whose authors lament the “apostasy” of the people of Israel, threatening them with the wrath of God if they do not give up their polytheistic cults. Ancient Israelite religion was originally polytheistic; the Israelites worshipped many deities, including El, Baal, Asherah, and Astarte.

YHWH was originally the national god of the Kingdom of Israel and the Kingdom of Judah. As time progressed, the henotheistic cult of Yahweh grew increasingly militant in its opposition to the worship of other gods. Later, the reforms of King Josiah imposed a form of strict monolatrism. After the fall of Judah to Babylon, a small circle of priests and scribes gathered around the exiled royal court, where they first developed the concept of YHWH as the sole God of the world. Amenhotep IV initially introduced Atenism in Year 5 of his reign (3,348/3346 years ago) during the 18th dynasty of the New Kingdom. He raised Aten, once a relatively obscure Egyptian Solar deity representing the disk of the sun, to the status of Supreme God in the Egyptian pantheon. The orthodox faith system held by most dynasties of China since at least the Shang Dynasty (3,766 years ago) until the modern period centered on the worship of Shangdi (literally “Above Sovereign”, generally translated as “God”) or Heaven as an omnipotent force. This faith system pre-dated the development of Confucianism and Taoism and the introduction of Buddhism and Christianity.

It has features of monotheism in that Heaven is seen as an omnipotent entity, a noncorporeal force with a personality transcending the world. From the writings of Confucius in the Analects, it is known Confucius believed that Heaven cannot be deceived, Heaven guides people’s lives and maintains a personal relationship with them, and that Heaven gives tasks for people to fulfill in order to teach them of virtues and morality.

However, this faith system was not truly monotheistic since other lesser gods and spirits, which varied with locality, were also worshiped along with Shangdi. Still, later variants such as Mohism (2,470 – 2,391 years ago) approached true monotheism, teaching that the function of lesser gods and ancestral spirits is merely to carry out the will of Shangdi, akin to angels in Abrahamic religions. ref, ref

Damien Marie AtHope’s Art

Damien Marie AtHope’s Art

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Sky Father/Sky Mother “High Gods” or similar gods/goddesses of the sky more loosely connected, seeming arcane mythology across the earth seen in Siberia, China, Europe, Native Americans/First Nations People and Mesopotamia, etc. 

Sky Father/Sky deities? Earth Mother/Earth deities?

“Egyptian: (Nut) Sky Mother and (Geb) Earth Father” (Egypt is different but similar)

Turkic/Mongolic: (Tengri/Tenger Etseg) Sky Father and (Eje/Gazar Eej) Earth Mother *Transeurasian*

Hawaiian: (Wākea) Sky Father and (Papahānaumoku) Earth Mother *Austronesian*

New Zealand/ Māori: (Ranginui) Sky Father and (Papatūānuku) Earth Mother *Austronesian*

Proto-Indo-European: (Dyḗus/Dyḗus ph₂tḗr) Sky Father and (Dʰéǵʰōm/Pleth₂wih₁) Earth Mother

Indo-Aryan: (Dyaus Pita) Sky Father and (Prithvi Mata) Earth Mother *Indo-European*

Italic: (Jupiter) Sky Father and (Juno) Sky Mother *Indo-European*

Etruscan: (Tinia) Sky Father and (Uni) Sky Mother *Tyrsenian/Italy Pre–Indo-European*

Hellenic/Greek: (Zeus) Sky Father and (Hera) Sky Mother who started as an “Earth Goddess” *Indo-European*

Nordic: (Dagr) Sky Father and (Nótt) Sky Mother *Indo-European*

Slavic: (Perun) Sky Father and (Mokosh) Earth Mother *Indo-European*

Illyrian: (Deipaturos) Sky Father and (Messapic Damatura’s “earth-mother” maybe) Earth Mother *Indo-European*

Albanian: (Zojz) Sky Father and (?) *Indo-European*

Baltic: (Perkūnas) Sky Father and (Saulė) Sky Mother *Indo-European*

Germanic: (Týr) Sky Father and (?) *Indo-European*

Colombian-Muisca: (Bochica) Sky Father and (Huythaca) Sky Mother *Chibchan*

Aztec: (Quetzalcoatl) Sky Father and (Xochiquetzal) Sky Mother *Uto-Aztecan*

Incan: (Viracocha) Sky Father and (Mama Runtucaya) Sky Mother *Quechuan*

China: (Tian/Shangdi) Sky Father and (Dì) Earth Mother *Sino-Tibetan*

Sumerian, Assyrian and Babylonian: (An/Anu) Sky Father and (Ki) Earth Mother

Finnish: (Ukko) Sky Father and (Akka) Earth Mother *Finno-Ugric*

Sami: (Horagalles) Sky Father and (Ravdna) Earth Mother *Finno-Ugric*

Puebloan-Zuni: (Ápoyan Ta’chu) Sky Father and (Áwitelin Tsíta) Earth Mother

Puebloan-Hopi: (Tawa) Sky Father and (Kokyangwuti/Spider Woman/Grandmother) Earth Mother *Uto-Aztecan*

Puebloan-Navajo: (Tsohanoai) Sky Father and (Estsanatlehi) Earth Mother *Na-Dene*

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Sky Father and Earth Mother

“In comparative mythology, sky father is a term for a recurring concept in polytheistic religions of a sky god who is addressed as a “father”, often the father of a pantheon and is often either a reigning or former King of the Gods. The concept of “sky father” may also be taken to include Sun gods with similar characteristics, such as Ra. The concept is complementary to an “earth mother“. “Sky Father” is a direct translation of the Vedic Dyaus Pita, etymologically descended from the same Proto-Indo-European deity name as the Greek Zeûs Pater and Roman Jupiter, all of which are reflexes of the same Proto-Indo-European deity’s name, *Dyēus Ph₂tḗr. While there are numerous parallels adduced from outside of Indo-European mythology, there are exceptions (e.g. In Egyptian mythology, Nut is the sky mother and Geb is the earth father).” ref

“Earth deities. An Earth god or Earth goddess is a deification of the Earth associated with a figure with chthonic or terrestrial attributes. There are many different Earth gods and goddesses in many different cultures and mythology. However, Earth is usually portrayed as a goddess. Earth goddesses are often associated with the chthonic deities of the underworld. In Greek mythology, the Earth is personified as Gaia, corresponding to Roman Terra, Indic Prithvi, etc. traced to an “Earth Mother” complementary to the “Sky Father” in Proto-Indo-European religion. Egyptian mythology have the sky goddesses, Nut and Hathor, with the earth gods, Osiris and Geb. Ki and Ninhursag are Mesopotamian earth goddesses.” ref

Mother Goddess

“A mother goddess is a major goddess characterized as a mother or progenitor, either as an embodiment of motherhood and fertility or fulfilling the cosmological role of a creator- and/or destroyer-figure, typically associated the Earth, sky, and/or the life-giving bounties thereof in a maternal relation with humanity or other gods. When equated in this lattermost function with the earth or the natural world, such goddesses are sometimes referred to as the Mother Earth or Earth Mother, deity in various animistic or pantheistic religions.  The earth goddess is archetypally the wife or feminine counterpart of the Sky Father or Father Heaven, particularly in theologies derived from the Proto-Indo-European sphere (i.e. from Dheghom and Dyeus). In some polytheistic cultures, such as the Ancient Egyptian religion which narrates the cosmic egg myth, the sky is instead seen as the Heavenly Mother or Sky Mother as in Nut and Hathor, and the earth god is regarded as the male, paternal, and terrestrial partner, as in Osiris or Geb who hatched out of the maternal cosmic egg.” ref

Proto-Indo-European mythology

“The Proto-Indo-European pantheon includes a number of securely reconstructed deities, since they are both cognates—linguistic siblings from a common origin—and associated with similar attributes and body of myths: such as *Dyḗws Ph₂tḗr, the daylight-sky god; his consort *Dʰéǵʰōm, the earth mother; his daughter *H₂éwsōs, the dawn goddess; his sons the Divine Twins; and *Seh₂ul and *Meh₁not, a solar deity and moon deity, respectively. Some deities, like the weather god *Perkʷunos or the herding-god *Péh₂usōn, are only attested in a limited number of traditions—Western (i.e. European) and Graeco-Aryan, respectively—and could therefore represent late additions that did not spread throughout the various Indo-European dialects.” ref

“Some myths are also securely dated to Proto-Indo-European times, since they feature both linguistic and thematic evidence of an inherited motif: a story portraying a mythical figure associated with thunder and slaying a multi-headed serpent to release torrents of water that had previously been pent up; a creation myth involving two brothers, one of whom sacrifices the other in order to create the world; and probably the belief that the Otherworld was guarded by a watchdog and could only be reached by crossing a river. Various schools of thought exist regarding possible interpretations of the reconstructed Proto-Indo-European mythology. The main mythologies used in comparative reconstruction are Indo-Iranian, Baltic, Roman, Norse, Celtic, Greek, Slavic, Hittite, Armenian, and Albanian.” ref

“The Meteorological or Naturist School holds that Proto-Indo-European myths initially emerged as explanations for natural phenomena, such as the Sky, the Sun, the Moon, and the Dawn. Rituals were therefore centered around the worship of those elemental deities. This interpretation was popular among early scholars, such as Friedrich Max Müller, who saw all myths as fundamentally solar allegories. Although recently revived by some scholars like Jean Haudry and Martin L. West, this school lost most of its scholarly support in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.” ref

Damien Marie AtHope’s Art

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“These ideas are my speculations from the evidence.”

“1 central Eurasian Neolithic individual from Tajikistan (around 8,000 years ago) and approximately 8,200 years ago Yuzhniy Oleniy Ostrov group from Karelia in western Russia formed by 19 genomes affinity to Villabruna ancestry than all the other Eastern Hunter-Gatherer groups” https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-023-05726-0

Damien Marie AtHope’s Art

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“The Great Spirt and the Evil one Native American (Navajo): the Fathers of All Fathers. The Supreme Being. The Father of the Holy People. The Great Spirit. (watches us by light like sun light or moon light) = Sky Father creator and maker to all things, corn pollen prayer are offered, sacred stone offering to, protect us by the light of the sun. The Great Spirit is a common reference among many Native American Tribes.” ref, ref

There are three types of the Great Spirit thinking (to me):

  1. Great Spirit (animistic type): “Great Mystery” likely no referred gender.
  2. Great Spirit (totemistic/shamanistic type): “Great Spirit” is likely not fully seen as a god/goddess-type spirit, it could be an animal but may have male or female gender.
  3. Great Spirit (paganistic type): “Great/High God” likely a male gender commonly related to the sun or blue/clear sky.

Sky Father/Sky Chief Mythology: Great spirit, Great Mystery, and Great Father

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Tiān Deity

“Tian (天) is one of the oldest Chinese terms for heaven and a key concept in Chinese mythology, philosophy, and religion. For the etymology of Tian, Schuessler links it with the Turkic and Mongolian word tengri ‘sky’, ‘heaven’, ‘deity’ or the Tibeto-Burman words taleŋ (Adi) and tǎ-lyaŋ (Lepcha), both meaning ‘sky’ or ‘God’. Tengri is the all-encompassing God of Heaven in the traditional Turkic, Yeniseian, Mongolic, and various other nomadic religious beliefs. The core beings in Tengrism are the Sky Father (Tenger Etseg) and the Earth Mother (Umay Ana). It involves ancestor worship, as Tengri was thought to have been the ancestral progenitor of mankind in Turkic regions and Mongolia, shamanism, animism, and totemism. Linguist Stefan Georg has proposed that the Turkic word ultimately originates as a loanword from Proto-Yeniseian *tɨŋgVr- “high.” ref, ref

Confucianism’s Tiān (Shangdi god 4,000 years old): Supernaturalism, Pantheism or Theism?

Damien Marie AtHope’s Art

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Atlantis (Fake Story): like the “Creation Myth” for Racists

My best Video talking about My thoughts on “Religion and Deity Evolution” with Questions and Answers (VIDEO)

But is Atlantis real?

No. Atlantis (an allegory: “fake story” interpreted to reveal a hidden meaning) can’t be found any more than one can locate the Jolly Green Giant that is said to watch over frozen vegetables. Lol

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May Reason Set You Free

There are a lot of truly great things said by anarchists in history, and also some deeply vile things, too, from not supporting Women’s rights to Anti-Semitism. There are those who also reject those supporting women’s rights as well as fight anti-Semitism. This is why I push reason as my only master, not anarchist thinking, though anarchism, to me, should see all humans everywhere as equal in dignity and rights.

We—Cory and Damien—are following the greatness that can be found in anarchist thinking.

As an Anarchist Educator, Damien strives to teach the plain truth. Damien does not support violence as my method to change. Rather, I choose education that builds Enlightenment and Empowerment. I champion Dignity and Equality. We rise by helping each other. What is the price of a tear? What is the cost of a smile? How can we see clearly when others pay the cost of our indifference and fear? We should help people in need. Why is that so hard for some people? Rich Ghouls must End. Damien wants “billionaires” to stop being a thing. Tax then into equality. To Damien, there is no debate, Capitalism is unethical. Moreover, as an Anarchist Educator, Damien knows violence is not the way to inspire lasting positive change. But we are not limited to violence, we have education, one of the most lasting and powerful ways to improve the world. We empower the world by championing Truth and its supporters.

Anarchism and Education

“Various alternatives to education and their problems have been proposed by anarchists which have gone from alternative education systems and environments, self-education, advocacy of youth and children rights, and freethought activism.” ref

“Historical accounts of anarchist educational experiments to explore how their pedagogical practices, organization, and content constituted a radical alternative to mainstream forms of educational provision in different historical periods.” ref

“The Ferrer school was an early 20th century libertarian school inspired by the anarchist pedagogy of Francisco Ferrer. He was a proponent of rationalist, secular education that emphasized reason, dignity, self-reliance, and scientific observation. The Ferrer movement’s philosophy had two distinct tendencies: non-didactic freedom from dogma and the more didactic fostering of counter-hegemonic beliefs. Towards non-didactic freedom from dogma, and fulfilled the child-centered tradition.” ref

Teach Real History: all our lives depend on it.

#SupportRealArchaeology

#RejectPseudoarchaeology

Damien sees lies about history as crimes against humanity. And we all must help humanity by addressing “any and all” who make harmful lies about history.

Anarchists Cory Johnston (in Saskatchewan) and Damien Marie AtHope (in Florida) seek to learn more about the indigenous peoples of the Americas (First Nations/Native Americans) where they both live.

“The First Nations of Saskatchewan are: Nêhiyawak (Plains Cree), Nahkawininiwak (Saulteaux), Nakota (Assiniboine), Dakota and Lakota (Sioux), and Denesuline (Dene/Chipewyan).” ref

“Native Americans in Florida are: Ais, Apalachee, Calusa, Creek, Miccosukee, Seminole, Timucua, and Yemassee.” ref

Investigating and Visiting Several Prehistoric Indian Mounds in Florida; Culture, Religion, and Power

Colonization and Colonialism of Canada: learning about Indigenous Peoples of Canada and Saskatchewan (VIDEO)

Colonization and Colonialism of the USA: learning about Indigenous Peoples of America and Florida (VIDEO)

Colonization and Colonialism of Florida, its Indigenous Peoples, and a little on Masculinity (VIDEO)

Damien Marie AtHope’s Art

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My favorite “Graham Hancock” Quote?

“In what archaeologists have studied, yes, we can say there is NO Evidence of an advanced civilization.” – (Time 1:27) Joe Rogan Experience #2136 – Graham Hancock & Flint Dibble

Help the Valentine fight against pseudoarchaeology!!!
 
In a world of “Hancocks” supporting evidence lacking claims, be a “John Hoopes” supporting what evidence explains.
 
#SupportEvidenceNotWishfullThinking
 
Graham Hancock: @Graham__Hancock
John Hoopes: @KUHoopes

Addressing Graham Hancock the Pseudoarchaeological Theorist, as well as Flaws in his Ancient Apocalypse, Great flood, and Seafaring R1b (BLOG POST)

Addressing Graham Hancock, the Pseudoarchaeological Theorist, AND Flaws in his Ancient Apocalypse (VIDEO)

My best Video talking about My thoughts on “Religion and Deity Evolution” with Questions and Answers

Damien Marie AtHope’s Art

People don’t commonly teach religious history, even that of their own claimed religion. No, rather they teach a limited “pro their religion” history of their religion from a religious perspective favorable to the religion of choice. 

Damien Marie AtHope’s Art

Do you truly think “Religious Belief” is only a matter of some personal choice?

Do you not see how coercive one’s world of choice is limited to the obvious hereditary belief, in most religious choices available to the child of religious parents or caregivers? Religion is more commonly like a family, culture, society, etc. available belief that limits the belief choices of the child and that is when “Religious Belief” is not only a matter of some personal choice and when it becomes hereditary faith, not because of the quality of its alleged facts or proposed truths but because everyone else important to the child believes similarly so they do as well simply mimicking authority beliefs handed to them. Because children are raised in religion rather than being presented all possible choices but rather one limited dogmatic brand of “Religious Belief” where children only have a choice of following the belief as instructed, and then personally claim the faith hereditary belief seen in the confirming to the belief they have held themselves all their lives. This is obvious in statements asked and answered by children claiming a faith they barely understand but they do understand that their family believes “this or that” faith, so they feel obligated to believe it too. While I do agree that “Religious Belief” should only be a matter of some personal choice, it rarely is… End Hereditary Religion!

Opposition to Imposed Hereditary Religion

Damien Marie AtHope’s Art

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Animism: Respecting the Living World by Graham Harvey 

“How have human cultures engaged with and thought about animals, plants, rocks, clouds, and other elements in their natural surroundings? Do animals and other natural objects have a spirit or soul? What is their relationship to humans? In this new study, Graham Harvey explores current and past animistic beliefs and practices of Native Americans, Maori, Aboriginal Australians, and eco-pagans. He considers the varieties of animism found in these cultures as well as their shared desire to live respectfully within larger natural communities. Drawing on his extensive casework, Harvey also considers the linguistic, performative, ecological, and activist implications of these different animisms.” ref

Damien Marie AtHope’s Art

We are like believing machines we vacuum up ideas, like Velcro sticks to almost everything. We accumulate beliefs that we allow to negatively influence our lives, often without realizing it. Our willingness must be to alter skewed beliefs that impend our balance or reason, which allows us to achieve new positive thinking and accurate outcomes.

Damien Marie AtHope’s Art

My thoughts on Religion Evolution with external links for more info:

“Religion is an Evolved Product” and Yes, Religion is Like Fear Given Wings…

Atheists talk about gods and religions for the same reason doctors talk about cancer, they are looking for a cure, or a firefighter talks about fires because they burn people and they care to stop them. We atheists too often feel a need to help the victims of mental slavery, held in the bondage that is the false beliefs of gods and the conspiracy theories of reality found in religions.

“Understanding Religion Evolution: Animism, Totemism, Shamanism, Paganism & Progressed organized religion”

Understanding Religion Evolution:

“An Archaeological/Anthropological Understanding of Religion Evolution”

It seems ancient peoples had to survived amazing threats in a “dangerous universe (by superstition perceived as good and evil),” and human “immorality or imperfection of the soul” which was thought to affect the still living, leading to ancestor worship. This ancestor worship presumably led to the belief in supernatural beings, and then some of these were turned into the belief in gods. This feeble myth called gods were just a human conceived “made from nothing into something over and over, changing, again and again, taking on more as they evolve, all the while they are thought to be special,” but it is just supernatural animistic spirit-belief perceived as sacred. 

Quick Evolution of Religion?

Pre-Animism (at least 300,000 years ago) pre-religion is a beginning that evolves into later Animism. So, Religion as we think of it, to me, all starts in a general way with Animism (Africa: 100,000 years ago) (theoretical belief in supernatural powers/spirits), then this is physically expressed in or with Totemism (Europe: 50,000 years ago) (theoretical belief in mythical relationship with powers/spirits through a totem item), which then enlists a full-time specific person to do this worship and believed interacting Shamanism (Siberia/Russia: 30,000 years ago) (theoretical belief in access and influence with spirits through ritual), and then there is the further employment of myths and gods added to all the above giving you Paganism (Turkey: 12,000 years ago) (often a lot more nature-based than most current top world religions, thus hinting to their close link to more ancient religious thinking it stems from). My hypothesis is expressed with an explanation of the building of a theatrical house (modern religions development). Progressed organized religion (Egypt: 5,000 years ago)  with CURRENT “World” RELIGIONS (after 4,000 years ago).

Historically, in large city-state societies (such as Egypt or Iraq) starting around 5,000 years ago culminated to make religion something kind of new, a sociocultural-governmental-religious monarchy, where all or at least many of the people of such large city-state societies seem familiar with and committed to the existence of “religion” as the integrated life identity package of control dynamics with a fixed closed magical doctrine, but this juggernaut integrated religion identity package of Dogmatic-Propaganda certainly did not exist or if developed to an extent it was highly limited in most smaller prehistoric societies as they seem to lack most of the strong control dynamics with a fixed closed magical doctrine (magical beliefs could be at times be added or removed). Many people just want to see developed religious dynamics everywhere even if it is not. Instead, all that is found is largely fragments until the domestication of religion.

Religions, as we think of them today, are a new fad, even if they go back to around 6,000 years in the timeline of human existence, this amounts to almost nothing when seen in the long slow evolution of religion at least around 70,000 years ago with one of the oldest ritual worship. Stone Snake of South Africa: “first human worship” 70,000 years ago. This message of how religion and gods among them are clearly a man-made thing that was developed slowly as it was invented and then implemented peace by peace discrediting them all. Which seems to be a simple point some are just not grasping how devastating to any claims of truth when we can see the lie clearly in the archeological sites.

I wish people fought as hard for the actual values as they fight for the group/clan names political or otherwise they think support values. Every amount spent on war is theft to children in need of food or the homeless kept from shelter.

Here are several of my blog posts on history:

I am not an academic. I am a revolutionary that teaches in public, in places like social media, and in the streets. I am not a leader by some title given but from my commanding leadership style of simply to start teaching everywhere to everyone, all manner of positive education.

Damien Marie AtHope’s Art

Damien Marie AtHope’s Art

Damien Marie AtHope’s Art

To me, Animism starts in Southern Africa, then to West Europe, and becomes Totemism. Another split goes near the Russia and Siberia border becoming Shamanism, which heads into Central Europe meeting up with Totemism, which also had moved there, mixing the two which then heads to Lake Baikal in Siberia. From there this Shamanism-Totemism heads to Turkey where it becomes Paganism.

My thoughts on the Evolution of Religion: from Animism to Paganism

Philosophy to the Rescue: explaining Reason, Logic, Evidence, Truth, Certainty, Reality, and Science

Talking about “Religion and Deity Evolution” on Twitter (X) Questions and Answers

You can’t change people, by reason and evidence. WRONG, I do it all the time.

Damien Marie AtHope’s Art

Damien Marie AtHope’s Art

Damien Marie AtHope’s Art

Damien Marie AtHope’s Art

Damien Marie AtHope’s Art

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Not all “Religions” or “Religious Persuasions” have a god(s) but

All can be said to believe in some imaginary beings or imaginary things like spirits, afterlives, etc.

Animism, Totemism, Shamanism, and Paganism

Damien Marie AtHope’s Art

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Paganism? Siberian Shamanism migrated to Turkey and then emerged as Paganism because of Agriculture.

Paganism 12,000-4,000 years old

12,000-7,000 years old: related to (Pre-Capitalism)

7,000-5,000 years old: related to (Capitalism) (World War 0) Elite and their slaves!

5,000 years old: related to (Kings and the Rise of the State)

4,000 years old: related to (First Moralistic gods, then the Origin time of Monotheism)

Damien Marie AtHope’s Art

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Low Gods “Earth” or Tutelary deity and High Gods “Sky” or Supreme deity

“An Earth goddess is a deification of the Earth. Earth goddesses are often associated with the “chthonic” deities of the underworld. Ki and Ninhursag are Mesopotamian earth goddesses. In Greek mythology, the Earth is personified as Gaia, corresponding to Roman Terra, Indic Prithvi/Bhūmi, etc. traced to an “Earth Mother” complementary to the “Sky Father” in Proto-Indo-European religion. Egyptian mythology exceptionally has a sky goddess and an Earth god.” ref

“A mother goddess is a goddess who represents or is a personification of nature, motherhood, fertility, creation, destruction or who embodies the bounty of the Earth. When equated with the Earth or the natural world, such goddesses are sometimes referred to as Mother Earth or as the Earth Mother. In some religious traditions or movements, Heavenly Mother (also referred to as Mother in Heaven or Sky Mother) is the wife or feminine counterpart of the Sky father or God the Father.” ref

“Any masculine sky god is often also king of the gods, taking the position of patriarch within a pantheon. Such king gods are collectively categorized as “sky father” deities, with a polarity between sky and earth often being expressed by pairing a “sky father” god with an “earth mother” goddess (pairings of a sky mother with an earth father are less frequent). A main sky goddess is often the queen of the gods and may be an air/sky goddess in her own right, though she usually has other functions as well with “sky” not being her main. In antiquity, several sky goddesses in ancient Egypt, Mesopotamia, and the Near East were called Queen of Heaven. Neopagans often apply it with impunity to sky goddesses from other regions who were never associated with the term historically. The sky often has important religious significance. Many religions, both polytheistic and monotheistic, have deities associated with the sky.” ref

“In comparative mythology, sky father is a term for a recurring concept in polytheistic religions of a sky god who is addressed as a “father”, often the father of a pantheon and is often either a reigning or former King of the Gods. The concept of “sky father” may also be taken to include Sun gods with similar characteristics, such as Ra. The concept is complementary to an “earth mother“. “Sky Father” is a direct translation of the Vedic Dyaus Pita, etymologically descended from the same Proto-Indo-European deity name as the Greek Zeûs Pater and Roman Jupiter and Germanic Týr, Tir or Tiwaz, all of which are reflexes of the same Proto-Indo-European deity’s name, *Dyēus Ph₂tḗr. While there are numerous parallels adduced from outside of Indo-European mythology, there are exceptions (e.g. In Egyptian mythology, Nut is the sky mother and Geb is the earth father).” ref

Tutelary deity

“A tutelary (also tutelar) is a deity or spirit who is a guardian, patron, or protector of a particular place, geographic feature, person, lineage, nation, culture, or occupation. The etymology of “tutelary” expresses the concept of safety and thus of guardianship. In late Greek and Roman religion, one type of tutelary deity, the genius, functions as the personal deity or daimon of an individual from birth to death. Another form of personal tutelary spirit is the familiar spirit of European folklore.” ref

“A tutelary (also tutelar) in Korean shamanism, jangseung and sotdae were placed at the edge of villages to frighten off demons. They were also worshiped as deities. Seonangshin is the patron deity of the village in Korean tradition and was believed to embody the Seonangdang. In Philippine animism, Diwata or Lambana are deities or spirits that inhabit sacred places like mountains and mounds and serve as guardians. Such as: Maria Makiling is the deity who guards Mt. Makiling and Maria Cacao and Maria Sinukuan. In Shinto, the spirits, or kami, which give life to human bodies come from nature and return to it after death. Ancestors are therefore themselves tutelaries to be worshiped. And similarly, Native American beliefs such as Tonás, tutelary animal spirit among the Zapotec and Totems, familial or clan spirits among the Ojibwe, can be animals.” ref

“A tutelary (also tutelar) in Austronesian beliefs such as: Atua (gods and spirits of the Polynesian peoples such as the Māori or the Hawaiians), Hanitu (Bunun of Taiwan‘s term for spirit), Hyang (Kawi, Sundanese, Javanese, and Balinese Supreme Being, in ancient Java and Bali mythology and this spiritual entity, can be either divine or ancestral), Kaitiaki (New Zealand Māori term used for the concept of guardianship, for the sky, the sea, and the land), Kawas (mythology) (divided into 6 groups: gods, ancestors, souls of the living, spirits of living things, spirits of lifeless objects, and ghosts), Tiki (Māori mythology, Tiki is the first man created by either Tūmatauenga or Tāne and represents deified ancestors found in most Polynesian cultures). ” ref, ref, ref, ref, ref, ref, ref

Mesopotamian Tutelary Deities can be seen as ones related to City-States 

“Historical city-states included Sumerian cities such as Uruk and Ur; Ancient Egyptian city-states, such as Thebes and Memphis; the Phoenician cities (such as Tyre and Sidon); the five Philistine city-states; the Berber city-states of the Garamantes; the city-states of ancient Greece (the poleis such as Athens, Sparta, Thebes, and Corinth); the Roman Republic (which grew from a city-state into a vast empire); the Italian city-states from the Middle Ages to the early modern period, such as Florence, Siena, Ferrara, Milan (which as they grew in power began to dominate neighboring cities) and Genoa and Venice, which became powerful thalassocracies; the Mayan and other cultures of pre-Columbian Mesoamerica (including cities such as Chichen Itza, Tikal, Copán and Monte Albán); the central Asian cities along the Silk Road; the city-states of the Swahili coast; Ragusa; states of the medieval Russian lands such as Novgorod and Pskov; and many others.” ref

“The Uruk period (ca. 4000 to 3100 BCE; also known as Protoliterate period) of Mesopotamia, named after the Sumerian city of Uruk, this period saw the emergence of urban life in Mesopotamia and the Sumerian civilization. City-States like Uruk and others had a patron tutelary City Deity along with a Priest-King.” ref

“Chinese folk religion, both past, and present, includes myriad tutelary deities. Exceptional individuals, highly cultivated sages, and prominent ancestors can be deified and honored after death. Lord Guan is the patron of military personnel and police, while Mazu is the patron of fishermen and sailors. Such as Tu Di Gong (Earth Deity) is the tutelary deity of a locality, and each individual locality has its own Earth Deity and Cheng Huang Gong (City God) is the guardian deity of an individual city, worshipped by local officials and locals since imperial times.” ref

“A tutelary (also tutelar) in Hinduism, personal tutelary deities are known as ishta-devata, while family tutelary deities are known as Kuladevata. Gramadevata are guardian deities of villages. Devas can also be seen as tutelary. Shiva is the patron of yogis and renunciants. City goddesses include: Mumbadevi (Mumbai), Sachchika (Osian); Kuladevis include: Ambika (Porwad), and Mahalakshmi. In NorthEast India Meitei mythology and religion (Sanamahism) of Manipur, there are various types of tutelary deities, among which Lam Lais are the most predominant ones. Tibetan Buddhism has Yidam as a tutelary deity. Dakini is the patron of those who seek knowledge.” ref

“A tutelary (also tutelar) The Greeks also thought deities guarded specific places: for instance, Athena was the patron goddess of the city of Athens. Socrates spoke of hearing the voice of his personal spirit or daimonion:

You have often heard me speak of an oracle or sign which comes to me … . This sign I have had ever since I was a child. The sign is a voice which comes to me and always forbids me to do something which I am going to do, but never commands me to do anything, and this is what stands in the way of my being a politician.” ref

“Tutelary deities who guard and preserve a place or a person are fundamental to ancient Roman religion. The tutelary deity of a man was his Genius, that of a woman her Juno. In the Imperial era, the Genius of the Emperor was a focus of Imperial cult. An emperor might also adopt a major deity as his personal patron or tutelary, as Augustus did Apollo. Precedents for claiming the personal protection of a deity were established in the Republican era, when for instance the Roman dictator Sulla advertised the goddess Victory as his tutelary by holding public games (ludi) in her honor.” ref

“Each town or city had one or more tutelary deities, whose protection was considered particularly vital in time of war and siege. Rome itself was protected by a goddess whose name was to be kept ritually secret on pain of death (for a supposed case, see Quintus Valerius Soranus). The Capitoline Triad of Juno, Jupiter, and Minerva were also tutelaries of Rome. The Italic towns had their own tutelary deities. Juno often had this function, as at the Latin town of Lanuvium and the Etruscan city of Veii, and was often housed in an especially grand temple on the arx (citadel) or other prominent or central location. The tutelary deity of Praeneste was Fortuna, whose oracle was renowned.” ref

“The Roman ritual of evocatio was premised on the belief that a town could be made vulnerable to military defeat if the power of its tutelary deity were diverted outside the city, perhaps by the offer of superior cult at Rome. The depiction of some goddesses such as the Magna Mater (Great Mother, or Cybele) as “tower-crowned” represents their capacity to preserve the city. A town in the provinces might adopt a deity from within the Roman religious sphere to serve as its guardian, or syncretize its own tutelary with such; for instance, a community within the civitas of the Remi in Gaul adopted Apollo as its tutelary, and at the capital of the Remi (present-day Rheims), the tutelary was Mars Camulus.” ref

Household deity (a kind of or related to a Tutelary deity)

“A household deity is a deity or spirit that protects the home, looking after the entire household or certain key members. It has been a common belief in paganism as well as in folklore across many parts of the world. Household deities fit into two types; firstly, a specific deity – typically a goddess – often referred to as a hearth goddess or domestic goddess who is associated with the home and hearth, such as the ancient Greek Hestia.” ref

“The second type of household deities are those that are not one singular deity, but a type, or species of animistic deity, who usually have lesser powers than major deities. This type was common in the religions of antiquity, such as the Lares of ancient Roman religion, the Gashin of Korean shamanism, and Cofgodas of Anglo-Saxon paganism. These survived Christianisation as fairy-like creatures existing in folklore, such as the Anglo-Scottish Brownie and Slavic Domovoy.” ref

“Household deities were usually worshipped not in temples but in the home, where they would be represented by small idols (such as the teraphim of the Bible, often translated as “household gods” in Genesis 31:19 for example), amulets, paintings, or reliefs. They could also be found on domestic objects, such as cosmetic articles in the case of Tawaret. The more prosperous houses might have a small shrine to the household god(s); the lararium served this purpose in the case of the Romans. The gods would be treated as members of the family and invited to join in meals, or be given offerings of food and drink.” ref

“In many religions, both ancient and modern, a god would preside over the home. Certain species, or types, of household deities, existed. An example of this was the Roman Lares. Many European cultures retained house spirits into the modern period. Some examples of these include:

“Although the cosmic status of household deities was not as lofty as that of the Twelve Olympians or the Aesir, they were also jealous of their dignity and also had to be appeased with shrines and offerings, however humble. Because of their immediacy they had arguably more influence on the day-to-day affairs of men than the remote gods did. Vestiges of their worship persisted long after Christianity and other major religions extirpated nearly every trace of the major pagan pantheons. Elements of the practice can be seen even today, with Christian accretions, where statues to various saints (such as St. Francis) protect gardens and grottos. Even the gargoyles found on older churches, could be viewed as guardians partitioning a sacred space.” ref

“For centuries, Christianity fought a mop-up war against these lingering minor pagan deities, but they proved tenacious. For example, Martin Luther‘s Tischreden have numerous – quite serious – references to dealing with kobolds. Eventually, rationalism and the Industrial Revolution threatened to erase most of these minor deities, until the advent of romantic nationalism rehabilitated them and embellished them into objects of literary curiosity in the 19th century. Since the 20th century this literature has been mined for characters for role-playing games, video games, and other fantasy personae, not infrequently invested with invented traits and hierarchies somewhat different from their mythological and folkloric roots.” ref

“In contradistinction to both Herbert Spencer and Edward Burnett Tylor, who defended theories of animistic origins of ancestor worship, Émile Durkheim saw its origin in totemism. In reality, this distinction is somewhat academic, since totemism may be regarded as a particularized manifestation of animism, and something of a synthesis of the two positions was attempted by Sigmund Freud. In Freud’s Totem and Taboo, both totem and taboo are outward expressions or manifestations of the same psychological tendency, a concept which is complementary to, or which rather reconciles, the apparent conflict. Freud preferred to emphasize the psychoanalytic implications of the reification of metaphysical forces, but with particular emphasis on its familial nature. This emphasis underscores, rather than weakens, the ancestral component.” ref

“William Edward Hearn, a noted classicist, and jurist, traced the origin of domestic deities from the earliest stages as an expression of animism, a belief system thought to have existed also in the neolithic, and the forerunner of Indo-European religion. In his analysis of the Indo-European household, in Chapter II “The House Spirit”, Section 1, he states:

The belief which guided the conduct of our forefathers was … the spirit rule of dead ancestors.” ref

“In Section 2 he proceeds to elaborate:

It is thus certain that the worship of deceased ancestors is a vera causa, and not a mere hypothesis. …

In the other European nations, the Slavs, the Teutons, and the Kelts, the House Spirit appears with no less distinctness. … [T]he existence of that worship does not admit of doubt. … The House Spirits had a multitude of other names which it is needless here to enumerate, but all of which are more or less expressive of their friendly relations with man. … In [England] … [h]e is the Brownie. … In Scotland this same Brownie is well known. He is usually described as attached to particular families, with whom he has been known to reside for centuries, threshing the corn, cleaning the house, and performing similar household tasks. His favorite gratification was milk and honey.” ref

Damien Marie AtHope’s Art

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“These ideas are my speculations from the evidence.”

I am still researching the “god‘s origins” all over the world. So you know, it is very complicated but I am smart and willing to look, DEEP, if necessary, which going very deep does seem to be needed here, when trying to actually understand the evolution of gods and goddesses. I am sure of a few things and less sure of others, but even in stuff I am not fully grasping I still am slowly figuring it out, to explain it to others. But as I research more I am understanding things a little better, though I am still working on understanding it all or something close and thus always figuring out more.

Sky Father/Sky God?

“Egyptian: (Nut) Sky Mother and (Geb) Earth Father” (Egypt is different but similar)

Turkic/Mongolic: (Tengri/Tenger Etseg) Sky Father and (Eje/Gazar Eej) Earth Mother *Transeurasian*

Hawaiian: (Wākea) Sky Father and (Papahānaumoku) Earth Mother *Austronesian*

New Zealand/ Māori: (Ranginui) Sky Father and (Papatūānuku) Earth Mother *Austronesian*

Proto-Indo-European: (Dyḗus/Dyḗus ph₂tḗr) Sky Father and (Dʰéǵʰōm/Pleth₂wih₁) Earth Mother

Indo-Aryan: (Dyaus Pita) Sky Father and (Prithvi Mata) Earth Mother *Indo-European*

Italic: (Jupiter) Sky Father and (Juno) Sky Mother *Indo-European*

Etruscan: (Tinia) Sky Father and (Uni) Sky Mother *Tyrsenian/Italy Pre–Indo-European*

Hellenic/Greek: (Zeus) Sky Father and (Hera) Sky Mother who started as an “Earth Goddess” *Indo-European*

Nordic: (Dagr) Sky Father and (Nótt) Sky Mother *Indo-European*

Slavic: (Perun) Sky Father and (Mokosh) Earth Mother *Indo-European*

Illyrian: (Deipaturos) Sky Father and (Messapic Damatura’s “earth-mother” maybe) Earth Mother *Indo-European*

Albanian: (Zojz) Sky Father and (?) *Indo-European*

Baltic: (Perkūnas) Sky Father and (Saulė) Sky Mother *Indo-European*

Germanic: (Týr) Sky Father and (?) *Indo-European*

Colombian-Muisca: (Bochica) Sky Father and (Huythaca) Sky Mother *Chibchan*

Aztec: (Quetzalcoatl) Sky Father and (Xochiquetzal) Sky Mother *Uto-Aztecan*

Incan: (Viracocha) Sky Father and (Mama Runtucaya) Sky Mother *Quechuan*

China: (Tian/Shangdi) Sky Father and (Dì) Earth Mother *Sino-Tibetan*

Sumerian, Assyrian and Babylonian: (An/Anu) Sky Father and (Ki) Earth Mother

Finnish: (Ukko) Sky Father and (Akka) Earth Mother *Finno-Ugric*

Sami: (Horagalles) Sky Father and (Ravdna) Earth Mother *Finno-Ugric*

Puebloan-Zuni: (Ápoyan Ta’chu) Sky Father and (Áwitelin Tsíta) Earth Mother

Puebloan-Hopi: (Tawa) Sky Father and (Kokyangwuti/Spider Woman/Grandmother) Earth Mother *Uto-Aztecan*

Puebloan-Navajo: (Tsohanoai) Sky Father and (Estsanatlehi) Earth Mother *Na-Dene*

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Sky Father/Sky Mother “High Gods” or similar gods/goddesses of the sky more loosely connected, seeming arcane mythology across the earth seen in Siberia, China, Europe, Native Americans/First Nations People and Mesopotamia, etc.

Damien Marie AtHope’s Art

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Hinduism around 3,700 to 3,500 years old. ref

Judaism around 3,450 or 3,250 years old. (The first writing in the bible was “Paleo-Hebrew” dated to around 3,000 years ago Khirbet Qeiyafa is the site of an ancient fortress city overlooking the Elah Valley. And many believe the religious Jewish texts were completed around 2,500) ref, ref

Judaism is around 3,450 or 3,250 years old. (“Paleo-Hebrew” 3,000 years ago and Torah 2,500 years ago)

“Judaism is an Abrahamic, its roots as an organized religion in the Middle East during the Bronze Age. Some scholars argue that modern Judaism evolved from Yahwism, the religion of ancient Israel and Judah, by the late 6th century BCE, and is thus considered to be one of the oldest monotheistic religions.” ref

“Yahwism is the name given by modern scholars to the religion of ancient Israel, essentially polytheistic, with a plethora of gods and goddesses. Heading the pantheon was Yahweh, the national god of the Israelite kingdoms of Israel and Judah, with his consort, the goddess Asherah; below them were second-tier gods and goddesses such as Baal, Shamash, Yarikh, Mot, and Astarte, all of whom had their own priests and prophets and numbered royalty among their devotees, and a third and fourth tier of minor divine beings, including the mal’ak, the messengers of the higher gods, who in later times became the angels of Judaism, Christianity and Islam. Yahweh, however, was not the ‘original’ god of Israel “Isra-El”; it is El, the head of the Canaanite pantheon, whose name forms the basis of the name “Israel”, and none of the Old Testament patriarchs, the tribes of Israel, the Judges, or the earliest monarchs, have a Yahwistic theophoric name (i.e., one incorporating the name of Yahweh).” ref

“El is a Northwest Semitic word meaning “god” or “deity“, or referring (as a proper name) to any one of multiple major ancient Near Eastern deities. A rarer form, ‘ila, represents the predicate form in Old Akkadian and in Amorite. The word is derived from the Proto-Semitic *ʔil-, meaning “god”. Specific deities known as ‘El or ‘Il include the supreme god of the ancient Canaanite religion and the supreme god of East Semitic speakers in Mesopotamia’s Early Dynastic Period. ʼĒl is listed at the head of many pantheons. In some Canaanite and Ugaritic sources, ʼĒl played a role as father of the gods, of creation, or both. For example, in the Ugaritic texts, ʾil mlk is understood to mean “ʼĒl the King” but ʾil hd as “the god Hadad“. The Semitic root ʾlh (Arabic ʾilāh, Aramaic ʾAlāh, ʾElāh, Hebrew ʾelōah) may be ʾl with a parasitic h, and ʾl may be an abbreviated form of ʾlh. In Ugaritic the plural form meaning “gods” is ʾilhm, equivalent to Hebrew ʾelōhîm “powers”. In the Hebrew texts this word is interpreted as being semantically singular for “god” by biblical commentators. However the documentary hypothesis for the Old Testament (corresponds to the Jewish Torah) developed originally in the 1870s, identifies these that different authors – the Jahwist, Elohist, Deuteronomist, and the Priestly source – were responsible for editing stories from a polytheistic religion into those of a monotheistic religion. Inconsistencies that arise between monotheism and polytheism in the texts are reflective of this hypothesis.” ref

 

Jainism around 2,599 – 2,527 years old. ref

Confucianism around 2,600 – 2,551 years old. ref

Buddhism around 2,563/2,480 – 2,483/2,400 years old. ref

Christianity around 2,o00 years old. ref

Shinto around 1,305 years old. ref

Islam around 1407–1385 years old. ref

Sikhism around 548–478 years old. ref

Bahá’í around 200–125 years old. ref

Damien Marie AtHope’s Art

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Knowledge to Ponder: 

Stars/Astrology:

  • Possibly, around 30,000 years ago (in simpler form) to 6,000 years ago, Stars/Astrology are connected to Ancestors, Spirit Animals, and Deities.
  • The star also seems to be a possible proto-star for Star of Ishtar, Star of Inanna, or Star of Venus.
  • Around 7,000 to 6,000 years ago, Star Constellations/Astrology have connections to the “Kurgan phenomenon” of below-ground “mound” stone/wood burial structures and “Dolmen phenomenon” of above-ground stone burial structures.
  • Around 6,500–5,800 years ago, The Northern Levant migrations into Jordon and Israel in the Southern Levant brought new cultural and religious transfer from Turkey and Iran.
  • “The Ghassulian Star,” a mysterious 6,000-year-old mural from Jordan may have connections to the European paganstic kurgan/dolmens phenomenon.

“Astrology is a range of divinatory practices, recognized as pseudoscientific since the 18th century, that claim to discern information about human affairs and terrestrial events by studying the apparent positions of celestial objects. Different cultures have employed forms of astrology since at least the 2nd millennium BCE, these practices having originated in calendrical systems used to predict seasonal shifts and to interpret celestial cycles as signs of divine communications. Most, if not all, cultures have attached importance to what they observed in the sky, and some—such as the Hindus, Chinese, and the Maya—developed elaborate systems for predicting terrestrial events from celestial observations. Western astrology, one of the oldest astrological systems still in use, can trace its roots to 19th–17th century BCE Mesopotamia, from where it spread to Ancient Greece, Rome, the Islamicate world and eventually Central and Western Europe. Contemporary Western astrology is often associated with systems of horoscopes that purport to explain aspects of a person’s personality and predict significant events in their lives based on the positions of celestial objects; the majority of professional astrologers rely on such systems.” ref 

Around 5,500 years ago, Science evolves, The first evidence of science was 5,500 years ago and was demonstrated by a body of empirical, theoretical, and practical knowledge about the natural world. ref

Around 5,000 years ago, Origin of Logics is a Naturalistic Observation (principles of valid reasoning, inference, & demonstration) ref

Around 4,150 to 4,000 years ago: The earliest surviving versions of the Sumerian Epic of Gilgamesh, which was originally titled “He who Saw the Deep” (Sha naqba īmuru) or “Surpassing All Other Kings” (Shūtur eli sharrī) were written. ref

Hinduism:

  • 3,700 years ago or so, the oldest of the Hindu Vedas (scriptures), the Rig Veda was composed.
  • 3,500 years ago or so, the Vedic Age began in India after the collapse of the Indus Valley Civilization.

Judaism:

  • around 3,000 years ago, the first writing in the bible was “Paleo-Hebrew”
  • around 2,500 years ago, many believe the religious Jewish texts were completed

Myths: The bible inspired religion is not just one religion or one myth but a grouping of several religions and myths

  • Around 3,450 or 3,250 years ago, according to legend, is the traditionally accepted period in which the Israelite lawgiver, Moses, provided the Ten Commandments.
  • Around 2,500 to 2,400 years ago, a collection of ancient religious writings by the Israelites based primarily upon the Hebrew Bible, Tanakh, or Old Testament is the first part of Christianity’s bible.
  • Around 2,400 years ago, the most accepted hypothesis is that the canon was formed in stages, first the Pentateuch (Torah).
  • Around 2,140 to 2,116 years ago, the Prophets was written during the Hasmonean dynasty, and finally the remaining books.
  • Christians traditionally divide the Old Testament into four sections:
  • The first five books or Pentateuch (Torah).
  • The proposed history books telling the history of the Israelites from their conquest of Canaan to their defeat and exile in Babylon.
  • The poetic and proposed “Wisdom books” dealing, in various forms, with questions of good and evil in the world.
  • The books of the biblical prophets, warning of the consequences of turning away from God:
  • Henotheism:
  • Exodus 20:23 “You shall not make other gods besides Me (not saying there are no other gods just not to worship them); gods of silver or gods of gold, you shall not make for yourselves.”
  • Polytheism:
  • Judges 10:6 “Then the sons of Israel again did evil in the sight of the LORD, served the Baals and the Ashtaroth, the gods of Aram, the gods of Sidon, the gods of Moab, the gods of the sons of Ammon, and the gods of the Philistines; thus they forsook the LORD and did not serve Him.”
  • 1 Corinthians 8:5 “For even if there are so-called gods whether in heaven or on earth, as indeed there are many gods and many lords.”
  • Monotheism:
  • Isaiah 43:10 “You are my witnesses,” declares the LORD, “and my servant whom I have chosen, so that you may know and believe me and understand that I am he. Before me no god was formed, nor will there be one after me.

Around 2,570 to 2,270 Years Ago, there is a confirmation of atheistic doubting as well as atheistic thinking, mainly by Greek philosophers. However, doubting gods is likely as old as the invention of gods and should destroy the thinking that belief in god(s) is the “default belief”. The Greek word is apistos (a “not” and pistos “faithful,”), thus not faithful or faithless because one is unpersuaded and unconvinced by a god(s) claim. Short Definition: unbelieving, unbeliever, or unbelief.

Damien Marie AtHope’s Art

Expressions of Atheistic Thinking:

  • Around 2,600 years ago, Ajita Kesakambali, ancient Indian philosopher, who is the first known proponent of Indian materialism. ref
  • Around 2,535 to 2,475 years ago, Heraclitus, Greek pre-Socratic philosopher, a native of the Greek city Ephesus, Ionia, on the coast of Anatolia, also known as Asia Minor or modern Turkey. ref
  • Around 2,500 to 2,400 years ago, according to The Story of Civilization book series certain African pygmy tribes have no identifiable gods, spirits, or religious beliefs or rituals, and even what burials accrue are without ceremony. ref
  • Around 2,490 to 2,430 years ago, Empedocles, Greek pre-Socratic philosopher and a citizen of Agrigentum, a Greek city in Sicily. ref
  • Around 2,460 to 2,370 years ago, Democritus, Greek pre-Socratic philosopher considered to be the “father of modern science” possibly had some disbelief amounting to atheism. ref
  • Around 2,399 years ago or so, Socrates, a famous Greek philosopher was tried for sinfulness by teaching doubt of state gods. ref
  • Around 2,341 to 2,270 years ago, Epicurus, a Greek philosopher known for composing atheistic critics and famously stated, “Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is not omnipotent. Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent. Is he both able and willing? Then whence cometh evil? Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him god?” ref

This last expression by Epicurus, seems to be an expression of Axiological Atheism. To understand and utilize value or actually possess “Value Conscious/Consciousness” to both give a strong moral “axiological” argument (the problem of evil) as well as use it to fortify humanism and positive ethical persuasion of human helping and care responsibilities. Because value-blindness gives rise to sociopathic/psychopathic evil.

Damien Marie AtHope’s Art

ref, ref, ref

“Theists, there has to be a god, as something can not come from nothing.”

Well, thus something (unknown) happened and then there was something. This does not tell us what the something that may have been involved with something coming from nothing. A supposed first cause, thus something (unknown) happened and then there was something is not an open invitation to claim it as known, neither is it justified to call or label such an unknown as anything, especially an unsubstantiated magical thinking belief born of mythology and religious storytelling.

How do they even know if there was nothing as a start outside our universe, could there not be other universes outside our own?
 
For all, we know there may have always been something past the supposed Big Bang we can’t see beyond, like our universe as one part of a mega system.

Damien Marie AtHope’s Art

Advocating Anarchism: Morality, Non-coercion, Anti-hierarchy, Solidarity, Internationalism, Mutualism, Cooperationism, Empowermentism, etc.

Damien Marie AtHope’s Art

While hallucinogens are associated with shamanism, it is alcohol that is associated with paganism.

The Atheist-Humanist-Leftist Revolutionaries Shows in the prehistory series:

Show one: Prehistory: related to “Anarchism and Socialism” the division of labor, power, rights, and recourses.

Show two: Pre-animism 300,000 years old and animism 100,000 years old: related to “Anarchism and Socialism”

Show tree: Totemism 50,000 years old: related to “Anarchism and Socialism”

Show four: Shamanism 30,000 years old: related to “Anarchism and Socialism”

Show five: Paganism 12,000 years old: related to “Anarchism and Socialism”

Show six: Emergence of hierarchy, sexism, slavery, and the new male god dominance: Paganism 7,000-5,000 years old: related to “Anarchism and Socialism” (Capitalism) (World War 0) Elite and their slaves!

Show seven: Paganism 5,000 years old: progressed organized religion and the state: related to “Anarchism and Socialism” (Kings and the Rise of the State)

Show eight: Paganism 4,000 years old: Moralistic gods after the rise of Statism and often support Statism/Kings: related to “Anarchism and Socialism” (First Moralistic gods, then the Origin time of Monotheism)

Prehistory: related to “Anarchism and Socialism” the division of labor, power, rights, and recourses: VIDEO

Pre-animism 300,000 years old and animism 100,000 years old: related to “Anarchism and Socialism”: VIDEO

Totemism 50,000 years old: related to “Anarchism and Socialism”: VIDEO

Shamanism 30,000 years old: related to “Anarchism and Socialism”: VIDEO

Paganism 12,000 years old: related to “Anarchism and Socialism” (Pre-Capitalism): VIDEO

Paganism 7,000-5,000 years old: related to “Anarchism and Socialism” (Capitalism) (World War 0) Elite and their slaves: VIEDO

Paganism 5,000 years old: progressed organized religion and the state: related to “Anarchism and Socialism” (Kings and the Rise of the State): VIEDO

Paganism 4,000 years old: related to “Anarchism and Socialism” (First Moralistic gods, then the Origin time of Monotheism): VIEDO

I do not hate simply because I challenge and expose myths or lies any more than others being thought of as loving simply because of the protection and hiding from challenge their favored myths or lies.

The truth is best championed in the sunlight of challenge.

An archaeologist once said to me “Damien religion and culture are very different”

My response, So are you saying that was always that way, such as would you say Native Americans’ cultures are separate from their religions? And do you think it always was the way you believe?

I had said that religion was a cultural product. That is still how I see it and there are other archaeologists that think close to me as well. Gods too are the myths of cultures that did not understand science or the world around them, seeing magic/supernatural everywhere.

I personally think there is a goddess and not enough evidence to support a male god at Çatalhöyük but if there was both a male and female god and goddess then I know the kind of gods they were like Proto-Indo-European mythology.

This series idea was addressed in, Anarchist Teaching as Free Public Education or Free Education in the Public: VIDEO

Our 12 video series: Organized Oppression: Mesopotamian State Force and the Politics of power (9,000-4,000 years ago), is adapted from: The Complete and Concise History of the Sumerians and Early Bronze Age Mesopotamia (7000-2000 BC): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=szFjxmY7jQA by “History with Cy“

Show #1: Mesopotamian State Force and the Politics of Power (Samarra, Halaf, Ubaid)

Show #2: Mesopotamian State Force and the Politics of Power (Eridu: First City of Power)

Show #3: Mesopotamian State Force and the Politics of Power (Uruk and the First Cities)

Show #4: Mesopotamian State Force and the Politics of Power (First Kings)

Show #5: Mesopotamian State Force and the Politics of Power (Early Dynastic Period)

Show #6: Mesopotamian State Force and the Politics of Power (King Lugalzagesi and the First Empire)

Show #7: Mesopotamian State Force and the Politics of Power (Sargon and Akkadian Rule)

Show #8: Mesopotamian State Force and the Politics of Power (Naram-Sin, Post-Akkadian Rule, and the Gutians)

Show #9: Mesopotamian State Force and the Politics of Power (Gudea of Lagash and Utu-hegal)

Show #10: Mesopotamian State Force and the Politics of Power (Third Dynasty of Ur / Neo-Sumerian Empire)

Show #11: Mesopotamian State Force and the Politics of Power (Amorites, Elamites, and the End of an Era)

Show #12: Mesopotamian State Force and the Politics of Power (Aftermath and Legacy of Sumer)

Damien Marie AtHope’s Art

The “Atheist-Humanist-Leftist Revolutionaries”

Cory Johnston ☭ Ⓐ Atheist Leftist @Skepticallefty & I (Damien Marie AtHope) @AthopeMarie (my YouTube & related blog) are working jointly in atheist, antitheist, antireligionist, antifascist, anarchist, socialist, and humanist endeavors in our videos together, generally, every other Saturday.

Why Does Power Bring Responsibility?

Think, how often is it the powerless that start wars, oppress others, or commit genocide? So, I guess the question is to us all, to ask, how can power not carry responsibility in a humanity concept? I know I see the deep ethical responsibility that if there is power their must be a humanistic responsibility of ethical and empathic stewardship of that power. Will I be brave enough to be kind? Will I possess enough courage to be compassionate? Will my valor reach its height of empathy? I as everyone, earns our justified respect by our actions, that are good, ethical, just, protecting, and kind. Do I have enough self-respect to put my love for humanity’s flushing, over being brought down by some of its bad actors? May we all be the ones doing good actions in the world, to help human flourishing.

I create the world I want to live in, striving for flourishing. Which is not a place but a positive potential involvement and promotion; a life of humanist goal precision. To master oneself, also means mastering positive prosocial behaviors needed for human flourishing. I may have lost a god myth as an atheist, but I am happy to tell you, my friend, it is exactly because of that, leaving the mental terrorizer, god belief, that I truly regained my connected ethical as well as kind humanity.

Cory and I will talk about prehistory and theism, addressing the relevance to atheism, anarchism, and socialism.

At the same time as the rise of the male god, 7,000 years ago, there was also the very time there was the rise of violence, war, and clans to kingdoms, then empires, then states. It is all connected back to 7,000 years ago, and it moved across the world.

Cory Johnston: https://damienmarieathope.com/2021/04/cory-johnston-mind-of-a-skeptical-leftist/?v=32aec8db952d  

The Mind of a Skeptical Leftist (YouTube)

Cory Johnston: Mind of a Skeptical Leftist @Skepticallefty

The Mind of a Skeptical Leftist By Cory Johnston: “Promoting critical thinking, social justice, and left-wing politics by covering current events and talking to a variety of people. Cory Johnston has been thoughtfully talking to people and attempting to promote critical thinking, social justice, and left-wing politics.” http://anchor.fm/skepticalleft

Cory needs our support. We rise by helping each other.

Cory Johnston ☭ Ⓐ @Skepticallefty Evidence-based atheist leftist (he/him) Producer, host, and co-host of 4 podcasts @skeptarchy @skpoliticspod and @AthopeMarie

Damien Marie AtHope (“At Hope”) Axiological Atheist, Anti-theist, Anti-religionist, Secular Humanist. Rationalist, Writer, Artist, Poet, Philosopher, Advocate, Activist, Psychology, and Armchair Archaeology/Anthropology/Historian.

Damien is interested in: Freedom, Liberty, Justice, Equality, Ethics, Humanism, Science, Atheism, Antiteism, Antireligionism, Ignosticism, Left-Libertarianism, Anarchism, Socialism, Mutualism, Axiology, Metaphysics, LGBTQI, Philosophy, Advocacy, Activism, Mental Health, Psychology, Archaeology, Social Work, Sexual Rights, Marriage Rights, Woman’s Rights, Gender Rights, Child Rights, Secular Rights, Race Equality, Ageism/Disability Equality, Etc. And a far-leftist, “Anarcho-Humanist.”

I am not a good fit in the atheist movement that is mostly pro-capitalist, I am anti-capitalist. Mostly pro-skeptic, I am a rationalist not valuing skepticism. Mostly pro-agnostic, I am anti-agnostic. Mostly limited to anti-Abrahamic religions, I am an anti-religionist.

To me, the “male god” seems to have either emerged or become prominent around 7,000 years ago, whereas the now favored monotheism “male god” is more like 4,000 years ago or so. To me, the “female goddess” seems to have either emerged or become prominent around 11,000-10,000 years ago or so, losing the majority of its once prominence around 2,000 years ago due largely to the now favored monotheism “male god” that grow in prominence after 4,000 years ago or so.

My Thought on the Evolution of Gods?

Animal protector deities from old totems/spirit animal beliefs come first to me, 13,000/12,000 years ago, then women as deities 11,000/10,000 years ago, then male gods around 7,000/8,000 years ago. Moralistic gods around 5,000/4,000 years ago, and monotheistic gods around 4,000/3,000 years ago. 

To me, animal gods were likely first related to totemism animals around 13,000 to 12,000 years ago or older. Female as goddesses was next to me, 11,000 to 10,000 years ago or so with the emergence of agriculture. Then male gods come about 8,000 to 7,000 years ago with clan wars. Many monotheism-themed religions started in henotheism, emerging out of polytheism/paganism.

Gods?
 
“Animism” is needed to begin supernatural thinking.
“Totemism” is needed for supernatural thinking connecting human actions & related to clan/tribe.
“Shamanism” is needed for supernatural thinking to be controllable/changeable by special persons.
 
Together = Gods/paganism

Damien Marie AtHope’s Art

Damien Marie AtHope’s Art

Damien Marie AtHope (Said as “At” “Hope”)/(Autodidact Polymath but not good at math):

Axiological Atheist, Anti-theist, Anti-religionist, Secular Humanist, Rationalist, Writer, Artist, Jeweler, Poet, “autodidact” Philosopher, schooled in Psychology, and “autodidact” Armchair Archaeology/Anthropology/Pre-Historian (Knowledgeable in the range of: 1 million to 5,000/4,000 years ago). I am an anarchist socialist politically. Reasons for or Types of Atheism

My Website, My Blog, & Short-writing or Quotes, My YouTube, Twitter: @AthopeMarie, and My Email: damien.marie.athope@gmail.com

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