Unsubstantiated Shit on the Historical Unity of Some Religions

common suggestion, as articulated by biblical scholar Mark S. Smith in The Origins of Biblical Monotheism, is that the Israelite Yahweh was derived from the traditions of the Shasu, linguistically Canaanite nomads from southern transjordan. An Egyptian inscription from the Temple of Amun at Karnak from the time of Pharaoh Amenhotep III (1390-1352 BCE) refers to the "Shasu of Yhw," evidence that this god was worshipped among some of the Shasu tribes at this time. Biblical archaeologist Amihai Mazar, in Archaeology of the Land of the Bible Volume I, suggests that the association of Yahweh with the desert may be the product of his origins in the dry lands to the south of Israel. Egyptologist Donald Redford, in Egypt, Canaan, and Israel in Ancient Times, suggests that the Israelites themselves may have been a group of Shasu who moved northward into Canaan in the 13th century BCE, appearing for the first time in the stele of Merenptah, and as Israel Finkelstein has shown in The Bible Unearthed: Archaeology's New Vision of Ancient Israel and the Origin of Its Sacred Texts settled the Samarian and Judean hills at this time.Even Earlier there are signs that Yahweh was worshipped as Yah at Ebla (2,350 BCE) and as Yaw at Ugarit (1800-1200 BCE), where he was one of the Elohim (Canaanite 'lhm) - the sons of El. Jean Bottero in Mesopotamia:Writing, Reasoning, and the Gods, suggests that Yah was the West Semitic version of the Akkadian God of Wisdom Ea, a name derived from the Sumerian E=house, A=water, a title given to the Sumerian God Enki. Yah and Ea were pronounced alike. Yahweh, like Ea was the creator of humankind, who saved the flood hero (Noah / Utnapishtim) from the flood.--Wikipedia, “Tetragrammaton”Many higher-level relationships between PIE and other language families have been proposed. Due to the great time depths, there is necessarily a great deal of speculation involved, and as a result the proposals are very controversial. Perhaps the most widely accepted proposal is of an Indo-Uralic family, encompassing PIE and Uralic. The evidence usually cited in favor of this is the proximity of the proposed Urheimaten of the two families, the typological similarity between the two languages, and a number of apparent shared morphemes. Frederik Kortlandt, while advocating a connection, concedes that "the gap between Uralic and Indo-European is huge", while Lyle Campbell, an authority of Uralic, denies any relationship exists. Other proposals, further back in time (and correspondingly less accepted), model PIE as a branch of Indo-Uralic with a Caucasian substratum; link PIE and Uralic with Altaic and certain other families in Asia, such as Korean, Japanese, Chukotko-Kamchatkan and Eskimo-Aleut (representative proposals are Nostratic and Joseph Greenberg's Eurasiatic); or link some or all of these to Afro-Asiatic, Dravidian, etc., and ultimately to a single Proto-World family (nowadays mostly associated with Merritt Ruhlen). Various proposals, with varying levels of skepticism, also exist that join some subset of the putative Eurasiatic language families and/or some of the Caucasian language families, such as Uralo-Siberian, Ural-Altaic (once widely accepted but now largely discredited), Proto-Pontic, etc.Wikipedia, “Proto-Indo-European language”According to Russian painter and scholar Alex Fantalov, there are only five main archtypes for all gods and goddesses of all Indo-European mythologies[2], and quite possibly, these five archetypes were the original deities of ancient PIE pantheon. These, according to Fantalov, are:1. God of the Sky2. God of Thunder3. God of the Earth/Underworld4. Cultural Hero5. Great GoddessThe Sky and Thunder gods were heavenly deities, representing the ruling class of society, and in subsequent cultures they were often merged into a single supreme god. On the other hand, the Earth god and the Cultural Hero were earthly gods, tied to nature, agriculture and crafts, and in subsequent cultures they were often split into more deities as societies grew more complex. And while it seems there existed some enmity between the Thunderer and the God of the Earth (which may be echoed in myths about battle of various thunder gods and a serpentine enemy, see below), the Cultural Hero seems to be a sort of demigod son of either the Sky God or the Thunder God, and was considered to be the ancestor of the human race, and the psychopomp. Together with the character of Great Goddess, who was a wife of the ruling Sky God,Wikipedia, “Proto-Indo-European religion”A proto-Sinaitic mine inscription from Mount Sinai reads ’ld‘lm understood to be vocalized as ’il dū ‘ôlmi, 'Ēl Eternal' or 'God Eternal'.The Egyptian god Ptah is given the title dū gitti 'Lord of Gath' in a prism from Lachish which has on its opposite face the name of Amenhotep II (c. 1435–1420 BCE) The title dū gitti is also found in Serābitṭ text 353. Cross (1973, p. 19) points out that Ptah is often called the lord (or one) of eternity and thinks it may be this identification of Ēl with Ptah that lead to the epithet ’olam 'eternal' being applied to Ēl so early and so consistently. (However in the Ugaritic texts Ptah is seemingly identified instead with the craftsman god Kothar-wa-Khasis.)Wikipedia, “El (god)”This is a partial list of possible Proto-Semitic deities.· *Il-Āh (Supreme God, see El, Elyon, Elohim and Allah)· *Ad' (Storm God, see Adad, Hadad, Adonai and Adonis.o Ba'al and Bel may have been aspects of *Ad', possibly in the form of a fertility god.· There was also a mother goddess (See Astarte, Ashtoreth, Asshur and Ishtar)According to Russian painter and scholar Alex Fantalov, there are only five main archtypes for all gods and goddesses of all Indo-European mythologies[2], and quite possibly, these five archetypes were the original deities of ancient PIE pantheon. These, according to Fantalov, are:1. God of the Sky2. God of Thunder3. God of the Earth/Underworld4. Cultural HeroGeneticsThe rise of Archaeogenetic evidence which uses genetic analysis to trace migration patterns also added new elements to the puzzle. Luigi Luca Cavalli-Sforza, one of the first in this field, recently used genetic evidence to in some ways combine Gimbutasʼ and Colin Renfrewʼs theories together. Here Renfrewʼs agricultural settlers, moving north and west, partially split off eventually to become Gimbutasʼ Kurgan culture which moves into Europe.In any case, developments in genetics take away much of the edge of the sometimes heated controversies about invasions. They indicate a strong genetic continuity in Europe; specifically, studies by Brian Sykes show that some 80% of the genetic stock of Europeans goes back to the Paleolithic, suggesting that languages tend to spread geographically by cultural contact rather than by invasion and extermination, i.e. much more peacefully than was described in some invasion scenarios, and thus the genetic record does not rule out the historically much more common type of invasions where a new group assimilates the earlier inhabitants (e.g. Romans in Southern Europe, Britons in Brittany, Arabs in North Africa, Slavs in Russia, Chinese in Southern China, Spanish in Mexico and Turks in Anatolia, etc.). This very common scenario of successive small scale invasions where a ruling nation imposed its language and culture on a larger indigenous population was what Gimbutas had in mind:The Process of Indo-Europeanization was a cultural, not a physical transformation. It must be understood as a military victory in terms of imposing a new administrative system, language and religion upon the indigenous groups.On the other hand, such results also gave rise to a new incarnation of the "European hypothesis" suggesting the Indo-European languages to have existed in Europe since the Paleolithic (see Paleolithic Continuity Theory).“Proto-Indo-Europeans”
Neolithic religionFrom Wikipedia, the free encyclopediaJump to: navigation, searchThe Neolithic religion is the hypothetical religion believed by the people in the Neolithic period in the Levant and Europe, and probably related to the Indoeuropean and Semitic religions.Deities and SpiritsThese are the possible Deities, Spirits and other characters from Neolithic Mythology. The Mother Goddess seems to be the Supreme deity (see Venus figurines).DeitiesMother Goddess: Indo-European: *Dg'hōm (Earth Goddess), Semitic: Atiratu (fertility goddess)Sky God: Indo-European: *Dyeus (sky God), Semitic: *Ilu (sky god)Thunder God: Indo-European: *Perkwunos / *Tarun, Semitic: *Haddu / *Ba'luGod of Death and the Underworld: Indo-European: *Yemnos, Semitic: YawSun Goddess in Sun Boat: Indo-European: *Sawelyosyo, Semitic: *Śamšu, Pre-Indo-European: See StonehengeMoon God: Indo-European: *Ménot, Semitic: *WarihuLesser SpiritsMinor Spirits*: Indo-European: Pan / Faunus, Cernunnos, Brownie, Domovoi, Tomte, Genii, Nymph, Faeries, Semitic: Jinn, Se'irim, Teraphim, Tawaret & Bes (Egyptian)Serpent: Indo-European: Jörmungandr, Typhon, Vrtra, Veles, Illuyanka, Semitic: Tiamat, Lotan, Tannin, Pre-Indo-European: See Ley lines (possibly related)*The spirits were of Household and Nature spirits.Others'Earth-Man': Indo-European: Manu (from *Dg'hōm-on, sometimes a god), Semitic: Adapas and `Adamu (from *`Dm)Axis mundi: Indo-European: World tree, Mount Olympus, Semitic: Trees of Knowledge and Life in Eden, Mount Sinai, see also Daniel 4:10-12 (possibly a Babylonian version)Motifs in Neolithic MythologyThe TwinsThese are two twins, one is sacrificed (Remus, Tuisto, Abel, Osiris) and becomes the God of Death, the other sacrifced his twin (Romulus, Mannus, Cain, Seth) and starts mankind. They are the sons of the supreme god.Indo-European mythologies have Yemnos and Manu - Romulus and Remus (Roman), Castor and Pollux (Greek), Tuisto and Mannus (Germanic).Semitic mythologies have Cain and Abel (Hebrew) , Lahmu and Lahamu (Mesopotamian). In Egyptian mythology Seth and Osiris may be related.The Thunder God's EpithetIn Neolithic mythology, the Thunder god is probably the (if not one of few) gods that have an epithet to their name. In Indo-European, *Perkwunos had the epithet *Tarun, so Perkwunos Tarun meant The thundering Striker. In Semitic, *Haddu had the epithet *Ba'lu, so Haddu Ba'lu meant The Thunder lordWikipedia, "Neolithic Religion"
http://fantalov.tripod.com/idea.htmhttp://www.ceisiwrserith.com/pier/whatwasreligion.htmhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nostratic(thing with Il-Ah, etc, from “Semitic gods”)http://www.historyofreligions.com/forum1.htmhttp://www.hindunet.org/hindu_history/ancient/aryan/aryan_frawley_1.htmlhttp://www.eblaforum.org/library/bcah/intbibarch05.html
http://www.scn.org/rdi/kw-3so.htmhttp://afrikaworld.net/afrel/http://afrikaworld.net/afrel/goddionah.htmhttp://www.ucalgary.ca/~nurelweb/books/atoms/fred.html

------------------------------------More on Africa, from Wikipedia: These sites are more political than religious per se, but where else am I going to put these links?:
from "Africa", Wikipedia:

Africa Action Africa Action is the oldest organization in the United States working on African affairs. It is a national organization that works for political, economic and social justice in Africa.African Anarchism: The History of a MovementAn Irish anarchist in Africa, western Africa from anarchist perspective.Commission for AfricaAfrican Unification FrontWorking class history in Africa -- people's and grassroots histories
And stuff from Wikipedia's "Economy of Africa" (again, where else to put it?):
Africa: Living on the Fringe - Monthly Review. Samir Amin offers a Marxist analysis of Africa's continued economic crisis.Africa's Failed Economic History - Yale Economic ReviewLending Africa an Invisible Hand - Yale Economic ReviewBBC: Africa's EconomyAfrica Economic AnalysisWorld Economic Forum - AfricaAfrican Development Bank GroupIMF World Economic Outlook (WEO) -- September 2003 -- Public Debt in Emerging MarketsLanguage and Africa