Indeed, this week we home in on the curious statement made by Jesus on the cross, where according to Matthew 27:46-47 Jesus cried out with a loud voice “…Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani?”, that is to say, “My God, my God, why hast Thou forsaken me?” ”. Eli, or Eloi, we determined, is premised on the Sumerian term illu – ‘Shining’ – thus mo-illu (‘fire/light-giver’ in Setswana) and illuminate in the English borrowed term. In both Sumerian and Setswana it had always meant ‘wizard’ – thus mo-illui (mo-loi) – which, I explained, is how ancient gods and their advanced technology were perceived by those outside of their elite class.
Last week we also noted that the Old Testament is based on two principal sources labelled as ‘Elohist’ and ‘Yahwist’, with the detected hand of redactor (a reviser or editor) attempting to fuse the two where they differed. Differed? Yes, despite the trite theological insistence (premised mainly from Paul’s utterances) that the Old Testament is the ‘divinely inspired’ Word of God, empirical examination of the earliest manuscripts reveals that, in the Elohist sources, Isaac (Abraham’s beloved son) never appears again after the command to Abraham (Genesis 22) to sacrifice him….implying that he was sacrificed – a version supported by an early midrash record. Meantime, in the Yahwist version, Isaac appears, inexplicably, later. A presumed redactor, upon examining the manuscripts, then ‘agreed’ the stories through the ram that was sacrificed instead. (Source: Wikipedia, under “Elohist”)
