Dwarves and a god Yaho?

In the Biblical Archaeology Review, mentioned in the posting before this one, are two interesting (to me) bits of information; both appear in an article by Jan Joosten, How Hebrew Became a Holy Language. [Page 44 ff.]

The first is a reference to the modern Hebrew word for dwarf, which is grammad.

Joosten writes that “This usage is ultimately based on a passage in Ezekiel where a people named gammadim (‘Gammadites’) are listed as one of many nations trading with Tyre. In later times, this nation was forgotten.” [Page 49]

Small peoples, now forgotten, in an area that Carl Sagan and Iosif Samuilovich Shklovsky wrote, in Intelligent Life in the Universe, was the site of an extraterrestrial visitation a little over 10,000 years ago?

Then in the same issue and article of BAR, Professor Joosten notes that a colony of Jews settled in Elephantine, a Nile island in upper Egypt (5^th and 4^th centuries B.C.) and “had a temple devoted to the God Yaho, no doubt the same God as designated by the tetragram (‘Yahweh’) in the Hebrew Bible.” [Page 62]

Thus, one is confronted by another name for God, which suggests that the ancient Hebrews were not solicited by one, monotheistic deity, but were confronted by many gods before Yahweh (Jehovah) asserted Himself, as Hebrew scholars acknowledge (and the word Elohim supports).

This supposition is used by Ancient Astronaut theorists for the idea that extraterrestrials (aliens) intervened in humanity’s evolutionary thrust(s), and, by so doing, inadvertently created the thing we call religion, humans seeing the visitors as gods from the stars or heavens.

Yaho and the dwarf peoples come together in the early Hebrew scenario, allowing for speculation(s) that may not be as loopy as they seem.

RR

A Matter of Interpretation?

This picture of a royal ceremonial “mask” (tukah) was presented in the January/February 2017 issue of Biblical Archaeology Review (Page 64).

It was said to be carved for a king of the Bamendou chieftaincy in the West Cameroon (Central Africa) in the first half of the 19^th century.

“To large and too heavy to have been worn, it was carried at the front of a parade, the only time the public saw it. At all other times, [it] was kept in a box guarded by the high council.” [Italics mine]

What doe this have to do with UFOs you ask?

I’m thinking that scholars have missed the mark in interpreting what the artifact is.

I think it’s a carving of a torso, kneeling, with a prominent display of the genitalia:

The “stomach” area is not a “prominent forehead” nor are those “almond-shaped eyes” but, rather, testes on either side of the phallus.

The chest area (carved lizards) symbolizes the content of the person, his heart (soul?).

Now, my Freudian predilections may be at work here, but my conjecture goes to the heart of how UFO researchers (ufologists) must be careful in interpreting what witnesses say they see in UFO sightings and, especially, alleged encounters with creatures or beings.

It’s all a matter of what’s in the mind of the perceiver, where neurological biases may prevail.

RR