Thoughts on the Logos

"In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God." (John 1:1)

John parallels the beginning of his Gospel with Genesis 1:1-2. However, he goes farther than the Genesis account in his assertion that the Logos existed before time and space. He speaks of the eternal pre-existence of the Word. 

The Logos is linked to the supernatural ordering of creation, but unlike the creature Maat in ancient Egyptian thought, the Logos is uncreated. Maat is the personification of the cosmic order, but not the generative cause or source of creation.

Among the ancient Egyptians we find a concept similar to the Greek Logos in Hu (ḥw) the first word or the word of creation. "Hu" also refers to the authoritative word that resides with the high king.

The Logos is the divine word that goes forth and fulfills or perfects all things. The divine word generates life. The Nilotic Luo have a saying: “Wach en gi teko” which means "a word has power."

The Bambara bards of Uganda recite this in praise of the Logos:

The Word is total:

it cuts, excoriates

forms, modulates

perturbs, maddens

cures or directly kills

amplifies or reduces

According to intention

It excites or calms souls.

St. Anthony the Great articulated the biblical understanding of the Logos as divine order: "God’s providence controls the universe. It is present everywhere. Providence is the sovereign Logos of God, imprinting form on the unformed materiality of the world, making and fashioning all things. Matter could not have acquired an articulated structure were it not for the directing power of the Logos, who is the Image, Intellect, Wisdom and Providence of God.”

One of my favorite Jacques Derrida terms is “Ontotheology” because it speaks of “the center” to which we inevitably must return for meaning. It is something like the Logos. As Derrida wrote, “It would be possible to show that all the terms related to fundamentals, to principles, or to the center have always designated the constant of a presence, ... essence, existence, substance, subject, ... transcendentality, consciousness or conscience, god, man, and so forth.” Derrida demonstrates that language is unstable and plays havoc with the concept of a transcendental, self-evident logos. That said, Derrida never denied the existence of “the center”, or that there is “Presence” there. However, he regards the center as a function of logic and language, not a divine being. In the biblical view, the Logos is divine, and in the testimony of the New Testament writers, the Logos became incarnate in the person of Jesus Messiah. 

John insists, "That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon and touched with our hands, concerning the word of life - the life was made manifest, and we saw it, and testify to it, and proclaim to you the eternal life which was with the Father and was made manifest to us - that which we have seen and heard we proclaim also to you, so that you may have fellowship with us; and our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ. And we are writing this that our joy may be complete." (1 John 1:1-4)

The opening lines of John's Gospel and the theological treatise of 1 John present a radical departure from ancient Greek philosophy and from modern philosophy. The Logos is not a mechanism, an abstract concept, or Aristotle's Unmoved Mover. The Logos is eternal God by whom all things were made. The cosmic implications of Jesus' death and resurrection follow: by Him all things are made new. The New Testament poses this as a new heaven and a new earth, a new order in which death is swallowed by life.  

Related reading: Early Resurrection Texts; Righteous Rulers and the Resurrection; Ritual Art: a Key to the Ancient Egyptian Book of the Dead

The Luwian: Another Theory

Hierogylphic Luwian Inscription found at Pancarli Hoyuk

Alice C. Linsley

Eberhard Zangger is the head of the international non-profit organization Luwian Studies based in Zurich, Switzerland. He believes that the Luwians destroyed the Hittite Empire 3200 years ago and were also responsible for destabilizing the Egyptian New Kingdom. Read more here.

The Luwian populations are called by various names: Luwian or Luian or Luwi. During the Hellenistic Period they were known to inhabit Lycia, Cilicia Aspera, and Crete, which is why they are considered by some to be the "Sea People" to which many Biblical and extra-Biblical texts refer.

Zangger believes the Luwian aggression explains the enigmatic and quick disappearance of many Bronze Age civilizations in the eastern Mediterranean during a period of about 50 years around 1200 BC. This is the conventional explanation of the Bronze Age collapse, but the identity of the Sea People continues to elude scholars.

In a paper published in the journal Nature Scientific Data, an international team from the Luwian Studies Foundation provided the most up-to-date map of Middle and Late Bronze Age (c. 2000–1200 BCE) Luwian settlements ever catalogued, which includes ancient Troy. The study, comprising 483 settlements, illuminates the cultural landscape around Troy and challenges long-standing scholarly assumptions. Alongside the scientific article, the team also published an interactive settlement map.

Modern cultural terms such as Mycenaean, Hittite, or even Luwian are terms of convenience. Zangger notes, “Some 3,000 years ago, identities of this kind did not exist in the clear-cut forms we use today. When we speak of ‘Luwians,’ we are referring to a region whose inhabitants certainly did not regard themselves as part of either the Mycenaean or the Hittite cultural spheres. Linguistically and ethnically, this area was home to numerous tribes and groups. People would have identified primarily with their city-state.”

Ther were Hebrew living in many of those city-states among the Luwian and the Hittites. Genesis 23 recounts how Abraham, the ruler of Edom, did business with Hittites. Here the Hittites are designated the "sons" of Heth/Het (Gen. 23:2-11) and one of the clans of Canaan (Gen. 10:15). They recognized Abraham as their kinsmen, addressing him as "a great prince among us" (Gen. 23:6).

The clan of Het lived near Kirtiath-Arba or Hebron (Genesis 23:3,7), at the northern boundary of Abraham's territory. This was the location of Sarah's settlement. Here Abraham purchased a cave tomb for Sarah's burial.

It is evident that the Hittites were widely dispersed, from Canaan to the kingdom of Khatti in eastern Asia Minor. The Hittite Empire of the second millennium BC rivaled that of the Babylonians and Egyptians. Current research on the Hittites relate the Hittites to the ancient city of Zippalanda and to recent excavations in Turkey. The Hittite and Luwian peoples were a major influcence on the cultural development of the Aegean civilization.

Hurrians are an ancient people of northern Mesopotamia, Syria, and eastern Asia Minor circa1500 BC and possibly descendants of the Horites that inhabited the Dead Sea region and the Nile Valley. Research suggests an organic connection between the Hurrian and Akkadian languages, although this is disputed by the Russian ethnologist Sergey Arutiunov. Arutiunov believes that the Luwians are the Luwi who live in Luya, on the southern coast of Asia Minor. According to Arutiunov, the Luwian and Hurri languages are not related. I don't agree with him. There seems to be a linguistic connection, but the complexity of languages by 2300–1000 BC is so great that it is difficult to pursue all the connections.

The Luwians had their own language, Luwian, which was predominant in western and southern Asia Minor during the second millennium BC. They also possessed a distinct script, Luwian hieroglyphics, from at least ca. 1700–700 BC.

Luwian hieroglyphs continued to be used throughout the Dark Ages (ca. 1200–800 BC), while the other Bronze Age writing systems were either abandoned altogether (Linear B) or were no longer used in Asia Minor (cuneiform).

The Luwian writing system is known from quotations in Hittite documents and from ancient scripts from Crete and Cyprus.

Recent research connects the Luwian hieroglyphs and the Hittite hieroglyphs. The Luwian inscriptions from the Yazilikaya site in Turkey are connected to the Hittite religion. The Luwian scripts took two forms: (1) Akkadian cuneiform, as with the Hittite scripts found at Hattusa, because from the 21st century BC to the late 18th century BC, Assyria controlled Anatolia; and (2) Egyptian hieroglyphic. Both writings systems are connected to the Proto-Saharan rulers who dispersed out of Africa into the Mediterranean and Southern Europe.

The spoken language had properties typical of Chadic, Nilotic, and ancient Sumerian languages, which like spoken Luwian, are ergative-agglutinative languages. 


Features of Luwian and Hittite Religion

The Luwian religion appears to be similar to that of the Hittites and the Hurrian or Horite Hebrew. There is a common symbolism involving the Sun, horns of the cow, stone altars, fortified temples, a binary worldview, etc.



Yazilikaya Water Shrine at Hattusa, Turkey

The binary feature of Hittite religion is expressed in the arrangement of male and female deities. The west wall of the Yazilikaya shrine is adorned with reliefs of gods and the east wall is devoted to goddesses. A relief of great significance shows the divine appointment of a woman by the overshadowing of the Sun and the divine appointment of a ruler as one who wears the horns as a solar cradle. This is inside of Chamber A on the western wall.

Another binary aspect of the ancient heliocentric religion is the distinction between heaven and earth. The Creator, known by many names in the ancient world, was portrayed as a male. At the Yazilikaya Sanctuary he is known as Teshub, also written Teshup or Tešup (cuneiform dIM). He makes the T journey (the solar arc) over Earth. One relief at the Yazilikaya shrine depicts the gathering of the celestial beings to witness the marriage between Teshub (Sky) and Hepat (Earth).

The sky was very important to archaic peoples and anything that came from the sky was regarded as coming from the Creator. This included rays of sunlight and meteroritic iron beads. These were perceived as the Creator's semen/seeds giving life to "mother" Earth. Obviously, the Creator was perceived as male/father and the source of fertility.


Divine Appointment

Luwian is the Anatolian language of cattle-herding peoples. The Luwian hieroglyph is a bull's head with horns, the sign of divine appointment. The bull's horns are a prominent feature of the religion of the archiac rulers. It represents the widespread solar symbolism that pertained to the Creator.

It was believed that the divinely appointed ruler would be conceived in his mother's womb by the overshadowing of the Sun, the Creator's emblem. This belief was widely held among the archaic rulers in the Nile Valley, in India, in Mesopotamia, and in Southern Europe. Sargon claimed such a miraculous conception, and according to Luke's Gospel, the Virgin Mary conceived by the overshadowing of the Holy Spirit (Luke 1:35).

Horus was conceived when Hathor was overshadowed by the Sun. That is why Hathor is shown wearing the Sun within the horns of the cow.

The Y image came to designate divinely appointed rulers among Abraham's people: Yitzak, Yacob, Yaqtan, Yishmael, Yeshua, Yishbak, etc. One of the signs of divine kingship was that the new born child was swaddled in a red cloak.

The Luwian: Another theory

The Luwian are also known as the Luwi. Luwi resembles the name of the Nilo-Saharan Lwo (Luo), an ethnic group that inhabits South Sudan and Ethiopia. The Luo languages belong to the Nilotic group and form part of the larger Eastern Sudanic family. This is the region of Abraham's Proto-Saharan cattle-herding ancestors.

There are many linguistic and cultural connections between the Luwian and the Nilotic Luo. Consider the word qanyty or qanitti in Genesis 4:1. Cain's mother declares, "Kaniti (Qanitti); I have gotten a man, as has YHWH."

The word qanitti is of Akkadian origin, but it is also found among the Nilotic peoples. This should not surprise us. Akkadian was the language of Nimrod's kingdom and Nimrod was the son of Kush, according to Genesis 10. The Akkadian itti, as in itti šarrim, means "with the king" or "for the king." It is attached to the names of royalty. Even today the Oromo and the Luo attach itti to names: Onditi, Kaartuumitti, Finfinneetti and Dimashqitti. That itti is associated with Nilotic rulers is evident in the name of the great Egyptian queen Nefertitti.

Related reading: Luwian Studies; Hieroglyphic Luwian Inscription from Pancarli Hoyuk; Historical Relationship Between Sanskrit and Hittite; Hittite Religion; The Sun and the Sacred; Abraham and the Hittites; The Yazilikaya Sanctuary; The Last Days of Hattusa

Are the Names Enoch and Enosh Equivalent?

Alice C. Linsley


I've been having an interesting conversation with a reader about the linguistic connection between the words Enoch and Enosh (Anoosha in Arabic, suggesting a relationship to the Annu/Ainu). He maintains, on the basis of the Hebrew text, that these names are not linguistically equivalent. I maintain, on the basis of the Old English and my analysis of the kinship pattern of Abraham's ancestors, that the names are linguistically equivalent (as are the names Irad and Jared, following the pattern evident with Lamech and Lamech and Esau and Esau) and that these first-born sons are named after their maternal grandfathers.

Dan: I believe you are in error about Psalm 8:6. The Hebrew does not say "What is henoch (heth-nun-vav-kaph)." It says, "What is enosh (aleph-nun-vav-shin)." "Enosh," of course, means "man, male." "Enoch" does not. (And for Hebrewless readers, note that the two names are much more dissimilarly spelled in Hebrew than in English. They're unlikely to be confused; nor would one serve very well as a pun for the other.)

(Learned about this blog through your interview in Road to Emmaus.)

Alice: Kain's first-born son was named Enoch and Seth's first-born son was named Enosh. These are linguistically equivalent names. The name appears later in Numbers as Ha'noch, the first-born son of Reuben. Here it appears to be a title, perhaps protecting the real name of Jacob's firstborn's firstborn.

The point is that the names Enoch/Enosh/Hanoch stand for the first-born son in the ruling lines. He is the ruler-designate, and an historical figure. He is paralleled in Psalm 8 with Adam, the First Created Man, to whom the mandate was given to "Be fruitful, multiply, fill the earth and subdue it. Be masters of the fish of the sea, the birds of heaven and all the living creatures that move on earth." (Gen. 1:28)

Dan: "Hanoch" and "Enoch" are spelled exactly the same in Hebrew, the only difference being vocalization of the vowels. Therefore, observing that "Enoch" appears in Numbers as "Hanoch" is exactly like saying that "Laurie" (pronounced "low-ri") appears later as "Laurie" (pronounced "law-ri").

"Enosh" is an altogether different matter. I would like to know the basis of your claim that it is "linguistically equivalent" to "Enoch." I don't think any semiticist would agree with you. "Enosh" is a straightforward use of the unambiguous root aleph-nun-shin, which means "man" in several semitic languages. "Enoch" is from the root heth-nun-kaph and probably means either "dedicated one, initiate" or "follower." That root shares only a single letter with "enosh," and while it's possible that the two gutterals aleph and heth could conceivably swap (although unlikely), it's far-fetched to claim that a shin and a kaph would ever do so. That's like saying an "s" became a "k" as a word moved from one European language to another.

In short, I think you need some very strong, hard evidence in order to claim that Enoch = Enosh, however similar they look once Anglicized.

Alice: Hebrew is a relatively recent language, do you agree? It is preceded by Old Arabic and the roots of the Dedanites are Ham and Kush. So we much look to the Nile region for the meaning of the words that apply to these ruler-priests. "Nakht" means powerful in Egyptian and applied to rulers, as in Pepi-Nakht-Heqaib. In Hebrew it takes the form ha-nok, which means the chief. The name probably is connected to the Nok civilization in west central Africa which predates the Chaldeans by at least 4000 years. The closest living language to the words in Genesis 1-12 is possibly Luo, a Nilotic language. Luo consultant John Ogutu explains that Enoch and Enosh are very likely the same name, but "Luos avoid the Sh as they find it difficult to say." He explains that Luos are likley to pronounce the name with the CH, or else they mispronounce it as S." This may explain the spelling of the name in the Septuagint as Enos.

Dan: True, Hebrew is relatively recent and localized compared with other semitic languages, but there is no mystery about its predecessors: Aramaic and Phoenician, which are ancient indeed. The root for the name "Enoch" (heth-nun-kaph) appears in Hebrew, Aramaic, Syriac, Arabic, and Ethiopic, so it's not as if there isn't any evidence available as to its basic meaning, which is something like "to use for the first time," a meaning which accounts for all of its forms and derivations in all of those languages. It's not certain if that circle expands all the way to Egypt, but if it does, shouldn't you give first consideration to Egyptian roots that retain the heth, like all the other languages do? Some people think Egyptian hnk.t "tribute, offering" is related, and some don't. To lop off the heth and pull out "nakht" as the ultimate source is going to require some hard evidence before any reputable linguist will buy it.

Alice:  As you point out earlier, Enoch and Enosh are Anglicized. In fact, they made their way into modern versions of the English Bible from the Old English Bibles.

It is understood in comparative linguistics that the phonemes ch and sh are often interchangeable (as with the Old French use of ch for the English sh), and that they are sometimes reduced to the phoneme K (as the Old English C almost universally is spelled with a K in the Germanic). As the names Enoch and Enosh are translations from Old English, it can be argued that Enoch (Kain's first-born son, listed in Gen. 4) and Enosh (Seth's first-born son, listed in Gen. 5) are equivalent and can be rendered Nok.

Nok is probably a throne name as it appears in the royal names such as Tef-Nakht and Pepi-Nakht-Heqaib. Nakht applied only to rulers and in Hebrew takes the form ha-nok, which means the chief. Hanock is the name given to the first-born son of Jacob's first-born son, so the name pertains to the ruler-designate. These are the first-born sons by two wives. The first-born son of the sister bride ruled in place of his father and the first-born son of the patrilineal cousin or niece ruled in place of his maternal grandfather (See "The Father of Kain and Seth.")

Analysis of the genealogies of Genesis 4 and 5 reveals that Kain and Seth married the daughters of a ruler named Enoch/ Enosh or Nok. These cousin brides named their first-born sons after their father. Since the sisters had the same father, there is good reason to believe that the names Enoch and Enosh are linguistically equivalent.

Dan:  I would point out that the Hebrew kaph does not represent the phoneme ch. It's not a gutteral; it's a good, dry, hard k. It's the heth that = ch. (I wish I could put a dot under the "h", but I can use a "ch" instead, as the heth is pronounced much like the German ch.) Also, "ha-" meaning "the" uses the he, not the heth.

If I'm following you correctly, you're arguing that at the front of the original word ("nok"), a he was added ("ha-nok," i.e., "the nok"), so presumably we've already taken "nok" into Hebrew at that point, since we're putting a Hebrew "the" on it. The he then turned into a heth (for the name Enoch) and it also turned into an aleph (for Enosh). Meanwhile, at the back end of the word "nok", the Hebrew quite predictably used a kaph (first on "ha-nok", and then "cha-nok" or Enoch), but at some point this kaph turned into a shin, presumably at the same time that the letter in front (either a he or a heth) was turning into an aleph, and that's how we got enosh. But for your "k" to morph into a "sh" I would think you would need an intermediate step, like the "k" becoming a "ch" and then a "sh," unless you have something in comparative linguistics suggesting that a k can turn directly into a sh.

Any one of these phonemic shifts by itself is possible, and some of them are unremarkable, but taken as a whole, doesn't the bumpy pathway you've traced out whereby the names Enoch and Enosh may equal each other, and both of them may equal Egyptian Nok, require an awful lot of special pleading in the absence of hard evidence? Especially since "chanok" and "enosh" are easily derived just as they are from the pool of common semitic roots right there in the Hebrews' back yard?

Alice: Nok was not Egyptian, but his line intermarried with the Nubian rulers who conquered Egypt.  We need to look at both Egyptian and Chadic languages for clues that relate the names.  Since the ruler-priests among Abraham's people were devotees of Horus whose totem was the falcon or hawk owl, we might consider the ancient Egyptian word for owl m-l-k (See Gabor Takacs, Etymological Dictionary of Egyptian, p. 1). The association of the falcon or hawk owl with Horus is the likely source of the Semitic malk or melek, meaning king. In Hausa (a Chadic language) the words horni and hanu are related. Here we have a suggestion as to a possible connection between Horus and Hanoch. (See Dictionary of Hausa, p. 19)

I agree that the etymology of the names has been solidified by the Hebrew text, but Abraham's ancestors lived long before Hebrew developed as a distinct language. Of course, this raises the question: What language did Abraham's ancestors speak?

Thanks for engaging me on this, Dan. You've given me more to think about and research.

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BIBLICAL ANTHROPOLOGY: Hebrew Names and Titles

The names Enoch and Enosh are linguistically equivalent. Both names can be traced to the word anochi, the title for a ruler-to-be or heir to the throne. Consider these first three words of the Ten Commandments: Anochi, Havayah E-lohecha, meaning I am God, your Ruler.

 

Related reading: Is Enoch a Royal Title?; Hebrew Names and Titles