Notus (Greek Νότος, Nótos) was the Greek god of the south wind. He was associated with the desiccating hot wind of the rise of Sirius after midsummer, was thought to bring the storms of late summer and autumn, and was feared as a destroyer of crops. I recently wrote that the idea of angels comes from a time when people worshiped planets as gods. Read my post to see why I claim the angels were planets. People were uneducated, but observant. Planets could be observed, but their motion was mysterious.
Starting with the assumption that current world religious beliefs and customs evolved from earlier beliefs and sparked by a lingering curiosity from childhood, I made a new discovery tonight, one I've not heard before.
Like the planets wandering in the sky, people experienced the winds, and these were mysterious.
Historical documents show that people once thought the wind was caused by the movement of spirits or gods such as the Anemoi.
In addition to being the light of the world, the bringer of light, and the Father of life on earth, God (also known as the Sun) creates the wind we feel.
The winds, like the sun, were important. They could help one in battle, for example. Or they could turn against you, destroy crops, bring pests, sand storms, etc.
World English Bible
Moses stretched forth his rod over the land of Egypt, and Yahweh brought an east wind on the land all that day, and all the night; and when it was morning, the east wind brought the locusts.
Young's Literal Translation
And Moses stretcheth out his rod against the land of Egypt, and Jehovah hath led an east wind over the land all that day, and all the night; the morning hath been, and the east wind hath lifted up the locust.
http://bible.cc/exodus/10-13.htm
People did not understand that the sun caused the wind due to atmospheric pressure changes, but they were correct about the wind’s connection with the sun.
What wrapped this up for me was a discovery I made in when reading about the Holy Spirit in John 3:8.
World English Bible
The wind blows where it wants to, and you hear its sound, but don't know where it comes from and where it is going. So is everyone who is born of the Spirit."
Young's Literal Translation
the Spirit where he willeth doth blow, and his voice thou dost hear, but thou hast not known whence he cometh, and whither he goeth; thus is every one who hath been born of the Spirit.'
http://bible.cc/john/3-8.htm
Bingo! Notice the older actual translation of the bible shows that the spirit IS the wind!
This is the equivalent of a religious transitional fossil. Yes, you may say, of course, the word "spirit" meant "wind" back then, but today, we have no such connection, so general awareness of this fact. This is how ideas take on a life of their own. This is where one "species" becomes another. What was once the wind spirit, becomes something entirely new in translation.
Young’s Literal Translation is a translation of the Bible into English, published in 1862. … The Literal Translation is unusual in that, as the name implies, it is a strictly literal translation of the original Hebrew and Greek texts. – wiki
Amazing. The father (the sun) and the holy spirit (wind) were all mysterious earthly experiences.
Reading what the Holy Ghost does and how that compares to the supposed actions of the wind gods, the Holy Spirit seems to be a unification of various wind gods, a nod to people absorbed by Christianity who believed in gods like Zephyrus. But this still doesn't feel quite right, it doesn't explain it well enough.
Zephyrus & Hyacinthus, Athenian red-figure
kylix C5th B.C., Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
Ezekiel 37:8-10 [8] I looked, and tendons and flesh appeared on them and skin covered them, but there was no breath in them. [9] Then he said to me, "Prophesy to the breath; prophesy, son of man, and say to it, `This is what the Sovereign LORD says: Come from the four winds, O breath, and breathe into these slain, that they may live.' "
Ah ha! Now I get the connection. Breath is life! This is another reason for early people to believe the godlike powers of the winds. When a person dies, his final breath was seen to leave. This observation is a reasonable origin for the idea that people have immortal immaterial essences, souls which can become ghosts that roaming the earth for a time.
World English Bible
I will lay sinews on you, and will bring up flesh on you, and cover you with skin, and put breath in you, and you shall live; and you shall know that I am Yahweh.
Young's Literal Translation
and I have given on you sinews, and cause flesh to come up upon you, and covered you over with skin, and given in you a spirit, and ye have lived, and ye have known that I am Jehovah.'
http://bible.cc/ezekiel/37-6.htm
Realizing that "spirit" is just another word for "breath" makes a lot of other things click into place.
World English Bible
Then he said to me, Prophesy to the wind, prophesy, son of man, and tell the wind, Thus says the Lord Yahweh: Come from the four winds, breath, and breathe on these slain, that they may live.
Young's Literal Translation
And He saith unto me: 'Prophesy unto the Spirit, prophesy, son of man, and thou hast said unto the Spirit: Thus said the Lord Jehovah: From the four winds come in, O Spirit, and breathe on these slain, and they do live.'
http://bible.cc/ezekiel/37-9.htm
Finally, I understand the origin of the Holy Spirit being in someone. The wind from your breath was associated with life, and since life is mysterious, this spirit wind of life was a gift from god. With childlike simplicity the primal awe of existence and the fear of mortality in this wind-spirit connection rings true. Who would not believe in spirits when they feel the wind every day?
World English Bible
Or don't you know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit which is in you, which you have from God? You are not your own,
Young's Literal Translation
Have ye not known that your body is a sanctuary of the Holy Spirit in you, which ye have from God? and ye are not your own,
http://bible.cc/1_corinthians/6-19.htm
Believe it or discard and ridicule this explanation as you must, but now I finally know, to my own satisfaction, ... which way the wind blows.
7 comments:
The definition of "expire" is to run out, no longer valid, or to die.
The etymology of "expire" is:
c.1400, "to die," from M.Fr. expirer (12c.) "expire, elapse," from L. expirare/exspirare "breathe out, breathe one's last, die," from ex- "out" (see ex-) + spirare "to breathe" (see spirit).
The source [etymology online] continues:
"Die" is the older sense in English; that of "breathe out" is first attested 1580s. Of laws, patents, treaties, etc., mid-15c. Related: Expired; expiring.
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When a person dies or expires he muscles relax and his/her last breath escapes. Thus, it was/is thought, as anthropologist have long noted among many peoples, that the breath was/is something akin to the soul or spirit.
But, should we take this absolutely literally? Maybe a dying person's last breath was a nice representation of what was called "soul" or "spirit"?
I encourage you to investigate two HEBREW words for spirit and breath (ruwach & nĕshamah) for it literally does mean breath or wind. Also, note in Genesis 2:7 where "nĕshamah" or breath is used it is speaking of the breath/spirit of God being breathed into Adam. Interestingly enough, its root word (nasham) means to pant or breath heavily as a woman giving birth. Not to say that God is woman or man, but to imply life, the first earthly life, was given through God's Spirit via the breath of God. And, yeah, your study was on such a concept was good. EVERY breath we take in is in a way the life giving breath/wind/spirit of God. Without it we would cease to exist. BUT...your investigation falls short when you fail to explain why God so generously and lovingly pours out his breath in creating and maintaining humans who often deny his existence. Why breathe life or spirit into them? Perhaps, just maybe, it IS all about love and mercy. Just maybe, call me crazy, when Jesus (Yeshua - salvation) gave up his Spirit on the cross and breathed his last (Luke 23:46) it was so we could take in the eternal breath/spirit/life that his death & resurrection would then offer us. But...I'm just sayin'...maybe...
Oh, and as for our souls becoming ghost and roaming the earth...that is a whole 'nother ball game! :)
Thanks much for the confirmation about the word origin.
Respectfully, the idea about life being the product of God's breath you are expressing is a few thousand years old. I think it formed because people did not yet have the tools to understand the purpose of respiration. I don't believe a person's breath is a magical spirit force given by a god.
Breathing is now understood to be a mechanical process for the transport of oxygen from air outside an organism to the cells within tissues, and the transport of carbon dioxide in the opposite direction.
"Love is like Oxygen, you get too much you get too high, not enough and you're going to die. Love gets you high." - Sweet.
The pyramids on different continents, common myths, ... It all points to what we know to be true by tracing mitochondrial DNA, that all nations can be traced back to a time when we were all together. An afterlife would be great. The idea has been around for a long time. I think it is tied to the observation that we lie down and go away every night, but we are born again every day when we wake up. By extrapolation the assumption is born that we will wake up into a different world or body when we lie down to die.
Xeno, the fact that there are pyramids on different continents doesn't mean they all had the same origin. But, that was a theory from the 19th century. Some anthropologists, at the time for example, thought the all cultures developed pyramids from the influence, in some creative fashion or other, from Egypt. That Egyptocentric theory and similar theories has long since been disproved in numerous ways.
As for common myths, as of the Joseph Campbell variety? Campbell is fine writer and entertaining, but his work doesn't place well within scholarly disciplines. It's fun to think of similarities, but that's all it is: food for thought. Claude Levi-Srauss kind of did the same thing when he tried to understand the structure of the human mind as polar opposites. And, everywhere he looked, in all the folktales and myths, he found the structure he was looking for. His work was far more successful within scholarly circles than Campbell's, but even structuralism has had its day.
About mitochondrial DNA, as in "Mitochondrial Eve"? Besides the fact that there has never been a single "Eve," if she lived, so it it is thought, 200,000 years ago, you'd have to ignore all the fossil record that go much further back in time. The work on mitchondrial DNA is obviously not finished at this point in time, it seems to me. Wiki's "Mitochondrial DNA" has an article on this (As a point aside it mentions Milford Wolpoff, who I met once.)
Yes, you're correct: Anthropologists thought about the origins of an after life a long time ago. They had the idea that notion of flying, of an after life, etc. arose from dreams, when it appears we actually do seem to fly and meet our ancestors etc. And, that would lead to thoughts of "souls," "spirits," "after life," and so on. But, why should there be a common origin?
The human brain hasn't changed much in the last 50,000 years or more. We aren't much smarter than our distant ancestors, when it comes to thinking, making sense of the world. Sure, technology has advanced and we know more about the physical world, but the ability to use our cognitive processes hasn't changed. Give our ancestors some credit for being creative, imaginative, inventive and perhaps knowing about some things that we, today, don't value, or even dismiss, ignore or ridicule.
I use the term kingdom in the most liberal non-date or place specific sense. Call it the butt-kissing theory of revisionist history.
Yeah, well, I don't like "butt-kissing" theories. We do too much of that in our every day lives already. I want to see and "ass-kicking" theory of the common people prevail. :)
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