🎼🎶Oh little town of BethLahmu…🎶
The explanation of Btt-le em as the “House of (the god) Lahmu” is due to Otto
Schroeder, OLZ, 1915, pp. 294 f. This explanation is certainly correct…
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— Dr. William F. Albright, The Canaanite God Ḥaurôn (Ḥôrôn), The American Journal of Semitic Languages and Literatures, 1936
It is academic consensus that there is a substrata of polytheism before monotheism in the Levant. Which makes sense, even in the Hebrew Bible the Hebrews are immigrants to the Levant. Beth, meaning ‘house’, can mean ‘temple’ in a town name. This prompts the question, “For what deity?”
The full four-letter Tetragrammaton for Yahweh only begins to appear circa the 9th C BCE (Mesha Stele). And the Hebrew language only begins to form around 1000 BCE (Khirbet Qeiyafa Ostracon), and so the toponym Bethlehem now means “House of Bread” in Hebrew and “House of Meat” in Arabic. Wiki discusses this possible Lahmu substrata for the name of ** you do not have permission to see this link ** too.
** you do not have permission to see this link **ervant protector of “The Living One,” Ea.
Link above to Dr. Wiggerman’s Mesopotamian Protective Spirits, 1992.
Wiki for ease: ** you do not have permission to see this link **
Lahmu means “Hairy One.” He is the man of the wilderness. Girded. May have originated as a river spirit. He is an intercessor for humanity with “The Living One” Ea at rivers. Portrayed with moving water like his Lord, “The Living One”, Ea who was customarily shown with two rivers flowing out of his body. Compare:
John 7:38
As the scripture has said, ‘Out of the believer’s heart shall flow rivers of living water.’ ”
What scripture?
Lahmu can be plural, there can be several at once. In the original art, his girding (often his only garment in myth, otherwise being hairy is his form of clothing) is red:
Genesis 25:25
The first came out red, all his body like a hairy mantle, so they named him Esau.
The meaning of the word esau itself is not entirely certain.** you do not have permission to see this link **
— Wiki for ease.
Lahmu is the only Semetic-named personage in early Mesopotamian mythology. The Hebrew Bible states Abraham comes from ‘Ur of the Chaldees’ — that is Mesopotamia. Therefore, his grandson Jacob posing as a hairy man in order to trick his father for the lineage blessing (a switcheroo of identity that is accounted to his good and brilliance in the Bible) may have additional meaning related to Lahmu.
Again, with Jacob fording the tributary of the Jordan and being saved by his god, there’s the linguistic anomaly of God with one name speaking about God with another name:
Genesis 35:1
Then God [Elohim] said to Jacob, ‘Go up to Bethel and settle there, and build an altar there to God [L’El], who appeared to you when you were fleeing from your brother Esau.’
Which isn’t an anomaly if this text preserves a personal god and a supreme god, which is common for any ballpark period estimated for the Patriarchal Age.
I know what you’re thinking, “Sounds like John the Baptist!” Maybe. I’m a little less quick to rush to conclusions than you.
Happy Lahmuyears!
So, a lahmu is the divine guardian at boundaries: rivers, gates, thresholds, and doorways. Maybe seas.
The etymology of the name Hebrew, to “cross over” seems to define itself by a river boundary as well:
The most generally accepted hypothesis today** you do not have permission to see this link **
– ** you do not have permission to see this link **, for ease.
A lahmu — again with the only Semetic-language name in early written religion — had divine status:
In several cases the word laḫmu has the divine
determinative DINGIR sign in front of it in texts.
Because of this determinative, we can consider
this figure as divine in nature.
– Raquel Robbins, PhD candidate, lahmu specialist and student of Dr. Beaulieu in The Man with the Curly Hair: A New Look and Analysis of the Laḫmu in Mesopotamian Art from the 3rd to 1st Millennium, 2021
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As there can be multiple lahmus at once, I’ve learned that the capitalized Lahmu is reserved for the singular character as a modern convention, though cuneiform does not have capitalization. Cuneiform uses the dingir sign to deify and identify the individual as a proper name in Ea’s household lists, while if they are plural, even with the same look and role they don’t get that. Think one Chewbacca, many Ewoks. (Since there’s the liminal position of both being an individual and plural, I’m wondering if a theological promotion in a new region could ever be read as a majestic plural.)
The lahmus’ red color was painted over doorways
…to make disease, stroke and plague pass by.
-Dr. Wiggerman, Mesopotamian Protective Spirits, 1992
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Compare Exodus 12:22-23.
Academic consensus is that Yahweh exhibits syncretization. Yahweh certainly exhibits Storm God characteristics (which my best guess would attribute to El Shadday, “God of the Mountain,” a role name whose personal name could include Baal Saphon-El. Compare El Shaddai:
Dever and Cross both argue
that “El Shaddai” would really mean “El, the One of the Mountains.”42
– Jed Robinson, The God of the Patriarchs and the Ugaritic Texts: A Shared
Religious and Cultural Identity, 2010
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It is also academic consensus that the Hebrew Bible preserves a history before strict monotheism, where supreme gods, family gods and personal gods could be different deities. The rise of Seth Baal worship — Storm Gods with force lightning, Seth Lords, and stormtroopers — coincides with the Amorite rise. Then with their decline, it wouldn’t be without precedent in the ANE to replace the supreme with the personal deity (for example, Akhenaten gifted his household deity Ra-Horarkhty to the nation.)
Back to the lahmu show:
First, there is the pecu-
liar detail in Judg 16:13-14 that Samson wore his hair in seven “locks” (nlnnn), which can be understood as an Israelite variation on the six locks of the
lahmu…
– Dr. Gregory Mobley, The Wild Man in the Bible and the Ancient near East, 1997
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Judges 16:13
Then Delilah said to Samson, “Until now you have mocked me and told me lies; tell me how you could be bound.” He said to her, “If you weave the seven locks of my head…
In summation, the hairy, long-haired, red-girded warrior wilderness man defined as the “naked hero” finds parallels with all these Biblical figures if not more:
Adam, Ishmael, Esau, Jacob, Samson, Elijah, and John the Baptist.
I think the un-fancy lahmu that is an intercessor for humanity at rivers for his Lord Ea “The Living One”, a water ablution deity, best fits the presented image of John the Baptist. While Ea “The Living One’s” characteristics as a wise and cleverly spoken savior of humanity, exorcist-healer, and craftsman architect that escapes death and is a 3-day resurrector, and who is portrayed with rivers flowing from his body, best fits the presented image of Jesus.
And who do all these Biblical figures have in common? There is only one ANE language where an “l” has the capability of turning into a “y.” (So far as what different AIs like Gemini, ChatGPT, and DeepSeek tell me; Amorite is thinly attested and it’s really the weakest point of my claim, but worth exploring.) And that is Amorite, the West Semitic language that precedes Canaanite, Hebrew, and Aramaic, though their prolific w-to-y shift is better known. There just isn’t a lot of Amorite language texts laying around, there’s one and it was recently found. This syllabary was published in 2022, Biblical Archaeology article here: ** you do not have permission to see this link **
Otherwise Amorite was previously deconstructed via personal names and loanwords in Akkadian. Amorites also used hypocoristic (shortened) names. And they loved Ys so much. Check out Amorite by Dr. Viktor Golinets:
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Since all Mesopotamian deities are described as “shining,” mellamu, imo the potential cultural diffusion blurs between Lahmu and Ea at the point of Egyptian Iah, “The Shining One” who reached its height of popularity with the Hyksos as Yah:
It is probable that contact with Middle Eastern states in Palestine, states in, Syria and Babylonia was instrumental in the development of Iah as a deity. Certainly the zenith of Iah’s popularity lay in the period following the Middle Kingdom when immigration from the Levant was high and princes from Palestine, known as the Hyksos rulers, dominated Egypt.
– Dr. George Hart editor, Dictionary of Egyptian Gods and Goddesses, 1986 (2005 updated edition available somewhere else than Internet Archive.)
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Hold onto your kitty memes.
Deuteronomy 33:2
The Lord came from Sinai and dawned from Seir upon us; he shone forth from Mount Paran.
It is my refined hypothesis (and maybe that of my guide and Gemini 3 Pro – available for free at AI Studios) that these locations represent the triad of entities that form the new titulary deity of Yahweh Elohim:
Sinai = Yah
Mount Sinai is uncontestedly named after the moon god Sin. Moon Mountain. The interpretio of the moon god in an Egyptian narrative like the Exodus though, is Iah who the Hyksos called Yah. Iah/Yah’s epithet is “The Shining One.” This deity is symbolized by, but not actually the, crescent moon. Iah has a clear rebirth role in incantations and is later syncretized as Osiris-Iah. Iah is associated with the waxing moon typically symbolizing rebirth above, and a watery deep of rebirth below.
This is how The Shining One could DAWN from Mount Seir – because it’s the moon. This is how The Shining One could SHINE forth from Mount Paran – because it’s the moon.
Mount Seir is more to the East, so it would dawn there low first, and then once high in the sky it would spotlight Paran’s desert floor.
This would continue to make the Egyptian deity Iah/Hyksos Yah in my opinion likely to be the cultural diffusion of Ea with anûtu, Anu’s power, and why “Iah is in Anu” in the Egyptian Book of the Unalived. Again it is my original take that this worship would be brought by foreign wives, since the Iah theonyms are first present in noble female names, and native Egyptian noble women usually did not marry out. The unifying characteristic of all Mesopotamian deities is that they have melammu (shine).
Seir = Lahmu
Seir literally means hairy:
Se’ir Heb. Sei‘r‘, שֵׂעַיר, hairy [i.e. rough, by a play upon the name of Esau, see ** you do not have permission to see this link **]
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Edom literally means red:
E’dom (Hebrews Edom’, אֵֹדם or אדֵוֹם so called from his red hair, Ge 25:25, or from the red pottage for which he bartered his birthright, verse 30; Sept. Ε᾿δώμ), the later name of Isaac’s son, elder twin-brother of Jacob; more frequently called ESAU
Esau literally means hairy:
E’sau (Hebrews Esav’, עֵשָׂו, hairy [see Ge 25:25; his surname EDOM was given him from the red pottage, Ge 25:30]
Seir, Edom (for the postal service) is the mountain landmark of Esau of Edom’s home.
All definitions, McClintock and Strong Biblical Cyclopedia.
“The Hairy One” is of course, Lahmu whose only covering is red:
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Wiki for ease.
Paran = Ha
Yes, Ha the not-too-famous desert deity that replaced the trés unpopular Seth Baal as Lord of Foreign Lands, as I’ve mentioned before. While Paran is a mountain in this verse, the mountain is the landmark of the desert many times in the Hebrew Bible, like:
Genesis 21:19–22
While he was living in the Desert of Paran, his mother got a wife for him from Egypt.
Ha goes back to the Archaic Period in Egypt. Ha was first associated with manufacturing, like mining and metallurgy in the desert mountains between Egypt and Canaan, tasks performed by Semetic-speaking peoples for Egypt. Once he gets upgraded to Lord of a geographical region, he now has the hills too.
Again, actual scholarship has Ha the Egyptian desert deity’s first role, ‘Lord of the West’ as the underworld as ‘West,’ and not the geographic West. He claims lordship over foreign peoples from both geographic East and geographic West in his inscriptions.
Refresher:
The Concept of the Desert Embodied By The God Ha, 2023 Dr. Kata Jasper, ** you do not have permission to see this link **
Why would you add a Lord? Because Yah/Iah and Lahmu are not Lords. I think you need a Lordship for the titulary deity of a kingdom, and Baal is out.
Now in Deuteronomy 33:2 you have in text form the exact symbol of three ridges and desert of the Lord of Foreign Lands, the khaset. And that symbol of the Foreign Lands were first specifically attributed to the Shasu, the Semetic-speaking nomads:
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YaHW+Ha LaHMu?
I know, I thought LHM, read as Elohim, could be a catchall for El and the divine council, and it could still be or stack meanings. That’s why the ‘?’. Both the YHW and Yahu forms existed at the Jewish temple at Elephantine, and the Egyptian -w swaps for the Akkadian -u.
Here’s where the three unite:
2 Kings 3:9
So the king of Israel set out with the king of Judah and the king of Edom. After a roundabout march of seven days, the army had no more water for themselves or for the animals with them.
Israel, Judah, Edom seem to be in order of leadership status?
Kingdom of Israel
• Baal, (then much, much later Ha) is the deity outside of Egypt that is ascribed ‘Lord of Foreign Lands.” The Lord of Foreign Lands is what Hyksos means. Originally it is a tribal chieftan that rules other tribes. As an Egyptian deity, Ha’s personal name would likely not be used by a vassal, and so would be simply called Lord.
I mean King David commissions the architect of the First Temple from a big Baal city. I think he united the Baals before the Yahwists of the Josian Reform raised a household deity to a national one. Which is what seems to be implied in Hosea 2:16
On that day, says the LORD, you will call me, “My husband,” and no longer will you call me, “My Baal.”
Originally within Egypt, the Lord of Foreign Lands was Seth, and outside of Egypt it was Baal (imo they reference Seth and Abel). Ha replaces Seth because Seth is foreigny and Ramessidey. The characteristics of the Lord in the Hebrew Bible seemp to change, in my hypothesis (from storm god of split sacrifices to a sword god known for desert food miracles, and who still has those mountain storm associations. This would be facilitated by the miraculously-found proto-Deuteronomy text).
Kingdom of Judah
• Yah/Iah/Ea. Gihon Springs is a perfect apsu. And the lunar eclipse over Jerusalem, that Acts 2:20 alludes to when it subtweets Joel 2:31, also seems to match the purview.
“Salvation is of the Jews.” – Jesus, John 4:22. If Yah/Iah is the symbol of Ea’s rebirth aspect, as is my best guess, Ea is of course the earliest savior of humanity in written religion. The Jewish people having a Yah deity and an apsu may explain why it would be especially them that salvation would come from.
Kingdom of Edom
• Lahmu. Edom is described as ‘hairy’ and red. As far as people, Jacob and Esau both become Hairy Ones. That’s ok. Lahmu can be multiple.
I think Lahmu’s traits are in the mix of attributes assigned to the Hebrew deity (protector, guardian, blunt weapons, thresholds, marking the doorways) and I am giving up on exploring an L-to-Y swap because LHM could work just fine.
In my not humble opinion, Jerusalem’s Gihon Springs being the apsu is why a man from Judaea was widely prophesized to be the rebirth of new leadership that Jesus might have been accounted to fulfill. And there is no one more declared Lord globally than Jesus. Suck it Vespasian.
All copyright Nammu of Serene
Jesus heals at springs.
John the Baptist baptizes at the river.
Ea is a healer who is ** you do not have permission to see this link **
The spell formula called the Marduk–Ea incantation from ancient Mesopotamia is unique in history of medicine due to its documented use of almost 3000 years. The incantation was recited in exorcistic healing rituals.
– ** you do not have permission to see this link ** Dimensions of Healing Rituals in Ancient Mesopotamia, Amar Annus, 2020
Ea means, “The Living One” per Dr. Eespak.
The name Ea is most possibly of Semitic origins and based on the evidence from Ebla translating d en-ki with à-u9, it seems obvious enough for concluding a Semitic root *`yy for the name Ea to be possible to translate as “The Living One.”
– ** you do not have permission to see this link ** Near Eastern Gods Enki and Ea: Diachronical Analysis of Texts and Images from the Earliest Sources to the Neo-Sumerian Period, Peeter Eespak. (my bolding)
Again, in Revelation 1:17-18 Jesus is quoted as saying, “I am The Living One.”
Lahmu, meaning “The Hairy One,” intercedes for humans to his Lord Ea at the river.
** you do not have permission to see this link ** (pages 164-166).
It is my original hypothesis that Jesus is emulating Ea, “The Living One” and John the Baptist is emulating his servant Lahmu, “The Hairy One.”
Ea has domain over both river and springs, being the higher divine personage. There ain’t enough talk about the cave springs y’all.
…and among them, St. George Church, stands out as one of the oldest churches in the world, with a cave beneath it that might have been used for Christian worship as early as AD 33.
– ** you do not have permission to see this link ** organizes trip to discover the hidden treasures of Rihab, 18 March 2023
Basically, a circa-Second Century inscription in this cave in Jordan which has a sacred spring inside, commemorates the 70. This church’s lore has it that this is where the group operates from after the Crucifixion (4/3/33 per Harvard dating). In the First Century, this cave on the way to the Decapolis would have been under Nabataean aegis.
In First Century Jewish religion, there was no elevated sacredness attached to ‘cave springs’. Caves were often associated with sheol (the underworld) or pagan shrines (like the Cave of Pan at Banias). And worship was exclusive to the Jerusalem Temple.
Yet most life events of Jesus are associated with cave springs:
• John 9:1–7 (Pool of Siloam)
“Go, wash in the Pool of Siloam”
• John 5:2–9 (Pool of Bethesda)
• Mark 5:1-20, (Kursi) Healing of the Demoniac
• Matthew 16:13–20 (Banias, Caesarea Philippi at Mount Hermon, the highest mountain in the area and hey, site of Theandrios god-man worship)
“On this rock I will build my church”
• John 21 (Tabgha, Seven Springs) traditional site of Feeding of The Multitudes
• Matthew 17:1–8 (Banias again, Caesarea Philippi, Mount Hermon) site of the Transfiguration, per most modern scholarship
• Matthew 26:36/John 18:1 (Gethsemane, Grotto of the Betrayal) per tradition and archaeology
• Luke 1:26-1:28 (Spring of The Virgin, Ain Karem, now Mary’s Well) The Annunciation, as per early tradition
• Luke 1:39 (Spring of the Vineyard) The Visitation between Mary and Elizabeth, as per early tradition
• Luke 2:7 (Grotto of the Nativity) as per Justin Martyr c. 160 AD
These springs do not typically bubble up from the flat ground in the Levant, they are usually found in rock fissures, ie caves. Jesus contrasts Jacob’s Well with a spring metaphorically here:
John 4:13–14
Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks the water I give them will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give them will become in them a spring of water welling up to eternal life.
Where was there stagnant water instead? Golgotha, it was a quarry site that pooled rainwater.
Ea “The Living One” also has an epithet of Nudimmud, which means “Begetter/Shaper of Humanity.” Begetter as in making a copy, whereas a father’s son would bear some image of the father, but is not an exact copy. Compare:
John 1:14
The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the only begotten [monogenēs] who came from the Father…
In the Mesopotamian (Sumerian through Neo-Babylonian) tradition, (1) one king + (1) scholar form a pair for the era —this would be Jesus and John the Baptist in my original hypothesis.
Ioannes-Oannes
In 1921, Dr. Robert Eisler thought both Jesus and John the Baptist were emulating Ea. He notes that John’s Koine Greek transliteration of Ioannes has a close resemblance to Ea’s messenger’s Koine Greek transliteration of Oannes. I haven’t read a word of him yet, and this just what Gemini is telling me. He is supposed to deep-delve into Mandaean texts and discuss Lahmu’s similarities with John the Baptist in:
Orpheus–The fisher Comparative studies in Orphic and early Christian cult symbolism, Dr. Robert Eisler, 1921
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And expand on this in The Messiah Jesus and John The Baptist…,1931
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which I also haven’t read yet.
Lord Ea has multiple servant classes — like the guardian lahmus that are the wild men (the Ewoks), and the guardian apkallu fish-men (the Gungans), out of which there are seven Sages/Wise Men. Then of that, Oannes is number-one as Ea’s messenger.
I personally think that the Mandaean Book of John leans more heavily into the elevated Oannes name for John the Baptist than the Gospels do, while still evoking the Lahmu guardian role:
• Mandaean means Guardian of Knowledge
• John the Baptist in Mandaeanism guards The Treasure, which is an epithet for their deity “The Living One” Hayyi Rabba. Truth, “Kusta” is another epithet of their deity.
Truth stands by the worlds’ entrance
After an invocation, that is the opening line of The Mandaean Book of John, which in 2019 received a great translation from esteemed Bart Blog Contributor Dr. James McGrath. Entrances, thresholds, doorways, river boundaries — this is what a lahmu guards for The Living One. Guardian = strong-man defender that isn’t a warrior or a conqueror type.
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(Also thank you Dr. McGrath for making this translation open-source. And big thank you to the Mandaeans for opening this previously secret text up.)
The Gospels to me seem to hammer more on the wild man aspect of the lahmu archetype, which as a ‘master of animals’ defeated serpents/snakes/vipers:
Matthew 3:7 (also recounted in Luke 3:7)
But having seen many of the Pharisees and Sadducees coming to his baptism, he said to them, “Brood of vipers, who warned you to flee from the coming wrath?
When Jesus talks vipers though, in Matthew 12:34-36, it’s a little different. It delegates. It’s lordly.
In my opinion there’s a tone difference, even when accounting for the Book of Revelation, between John the Baptist’s quotes and Jesus’ quotes. Jesus seems to have a high-level leadership overview and a poetic tone.
All copyright someone who was born over a cave spring, true story.
Jesus, who named himself ** you do not have permission to see this link ** in Revelation 1:17-18, is crowned in vegetal matter and hung on a cross of olive wood.
John the Baptist’s followers, the Mandaeans’ deity ** you do not have permission to see this link **
The Living One is what the shining white silk banner, the ** you do not have permission to see this link **, on the Mandaean cross is symbolic for. This Living One epithet is used for the emanated aspect of their deity, The Great Life. Yes, the silk is intentionally draped into an anthropomorphic form.
As far as the claim that Jesus‘ cross was made of olive wood, there are three points that support it:
1. Byzantine emperors purportedly gifted fragments to churches, including Notre Dame. When four of these fragments were examined by Charles Rohault De Fleurry in 1870, all were of ** you do not have permission to see this link **.
2. Fragments of the world’s only modern discovery of a crucifixion in the Levant in 1985 were of ** you do not have permission to see this link **.
3. Roman soldiers expediently sourced the wood for a crucifixion from the immediate area. The 2022-2016 excavations at the site found one type of wood, ** you do not have permission to see this link **.
Yet scholars say that any resemblance between these two crosses are coincidental?
I think au contraire mon frere.
The more that scholarship arises for Sumero-Akkadian Mesopotamia, and the more that the secret texts of the Mandaeans are generously made public by them, the more that I believe their claim is bolstered that they are cultural re-enactors of the world’s oldest religion. I’ve made a case for that being originally Sumerian An, the unmanifested supreme deity whose will is manifested as his son Enki in Anûtu, which is variously translated now as “Anu-ship” and “Anu power.” Enki’s epithet as “Lord of Life,” when raised to Anu’s title of “Great,” seems like it can easily form the Mandaean deity’s primary name, Hayyi Rabba, meaning “The Great Life.” This deity is also sometimes called The Life and The Living One. (And as I’ve written before, the very similar-sounding Hayya and Hayya Rabbu, meaning, “The Living [One/God]” and “The Great Living [One/God]” are attested Eblaite names for Ea, which is the Akkadian name for Enki. The [One/God] in brackets is a translation convention for this name that is used to supply the substantive noun which the grammar leaves understood.)
Enlil, who also received a lot of cuneiform press, is not only a later addition per Mesopotamian gods lists, he almost disappears in the Antiquarian Revival. His powers seem connected to an empire that is no longer.
Refresher: ** you do not have permission to see this link **
My original hypothesis seems to match what I’m reading in scholar E.S. Drower’s ** you do not have permission to see this link **, 1937, and her assessment of the Mandaean god’s earliest origins:
This dual application was characteristic of the cults of Anu and Ea in Sumerian times…
I’ve made the analogy of Colonial America vs America, that while the Mandaeans re-enact the original religion, Jesus’ movement would be influenced by its modern form.
In the Antiquarian Revival of Seleucid (and some Alsacid) Uruk that ends around the 1rst Century BCE, there was a de facto supreme trinity:
• Anu (Akkadian name for the Sumerian An, the father deity)
• Antu (Anu’s emanation, which is simply Anu with a feminine suffix added. Compare the Holy Spirit which has feminine pronouns in the Peshitta, or the Mandaean Anana, the water cloud*.)
• Ea (Anu’s son, the exorcist-physician savior of humanity with the water ablution rites.)
*I think it’s magic tadpole water, which is usually the male domain obviously, but unusually falls under the female deity Anahita’s domain, for whom Antu and Anana could possibly share characteristics. This would make the Dad, his tadpole water, and his tadpole all of the same substance.)
Again, my hypothesis is that this cultural transmission would be relayed in the First Century via Judaea’s borderless neighbor of Nabataea, semi-nomadic people whose deity Dushara likely had the epithets of “The Life” and “The Great Life” per scholar Dr. Healey, and whose blessing for royals, “For the Life of [insert royal name here]” was shared with the Antiquarian Revival of Seleucid (and some Alsacid) Uruk, and who have a Mesopotamian origin, per scholar Dr. Graf.
So while Mandaeans would be cultural re-enactors churning butter in powder wigs, the Jesus movement would be the “Spirit of ’76”, emblifying the spirit of innovation in installing the “mes,” the niceties of civilization:
• Healthcare (** you do not have permission to see this link ** and accompanying them with river clay is an Ea practice) by bringing it to the last place in the civilized world to receive it:
Mark 6:13
They cast out many demons and anointed with oil many who were sick and cured them
• Printing. Books as a technology replacing scrolls are first found in highly-civilized Alexandria, and owes its spread to the earliest ** you do not have permission to see this link **.
• I’d say maybe even running water — the Nabataeans were the undisputed masters of this, and Nabataean Edessa becomes the home of ** you do not have permission to see this link **. And it is my original hypothesis that the Book of Isaiah’s plan for roads, running water, and agroforestry in the desert wilderness came to fruition in Petra.
Know your hegemons.
But why would the wreath-crown of the Mandaean The Living One be myrtle? As I’ve stated earlier, per their text the Inner Haran/Haran Gawaitha, the Jewish inflow of Mandaeans, self-described apostates from Jewish religion, in escaping an unrestful Jerusalem first find refuge in the Haran (historically Nabataean-controlled), and then after generations, maybe around the time that the Haran is ceded to Rome, are taken in by a King Artabanus (the dynastic name means there are several) in the Persian, Parthian empire. To this day, their main community of Nasoriyah lives on the same lagoon system of the Sumero-Akkadian The Living One — that of Eridu that is now dried up.
Myrtle just so happens to be the sacred twig, per Aban Yasht (Yasht 5.129), of the water ablution, light, and mercy deity called The Mother of The Living that peaked in any King Artabanus’ Parthian empire — Anahita. The Mother Of The Living potentially sharing a symbol with, or bestowing a symbol to, The Living One may be a type of syncretization, idk, but it is thematically the same, unlike say, Amun-Ra (the Egyptian air and sun deities syncretized into one persona), or a storm deity creating a miracle of food in the desert. I’m calling it right now — Antu, mother of The Living One, and Anahita, Mother of The Living – have they ever been seen in a room together?
Anahita embodies the pure river. Her tradition of myrtle twig bundles was part of the tradition of twig bundles called barsam (alike to the 7 myrtle twig bundles sometimes attached to the Mandaean cross). Strabo in his ** you do not have permission to see this link ** associates Persian river reverence with a myrtle twig bundle. The use of myrtle specifically in wreath-crowns might enter when Anahita is interpretio’d with Aphrodite, who is known for the myrtle wreath-crown. In fact, the first dateable reference so far for Anahita, “The Mother of The Living” is in 280 BCE as Aphrodite Anaitis, as described by Berossus, an author from Mesopotamia writing in Koine Greek.
For Jesus’ wreath-crown, my best guess so far is that the thorns may be a vegetal representation of the Radiate Crown of the Roman empire. Vegetal crowns are even more popular in this period than Coachella.
And apparently the Peshitta uses the Mandaean word ** you do not have permission to see this link **a word that is used for the Mandaean Living One’s wreath-crown, for Jesus‘ wreath-crown, while instead the customary word for crown is used in Revelation.
So, almost 6,000 years of continuous worship at Eridu, established 5400 BCE, and its natural springs start drying up. Worship, whose main city center had already moved to Ur millennia prior, then moves to (Antiquarian Revival) Seleucid Uruk, which still had a vigorous flow of the sacred water of the Tigris-Euphrates alluvial basin, which is the source of the Fertile Crescent where civilization first arises. But once the Parthians begin de facto defunding the temples, Gihon Spring might have started looking really nice, especially with the term Gihon being linked to original waters in Genesis 2:13. *trash panda hands start water washing*. Cue the arrival of water ablutionist softies, the (these are the presumed merged influences) Mesopotamian-Aramean-Quedarite Arab Nabataeans in 1 Maccabees 5:25
They encountered the Nabateans, who met them peaceably…
Their royal intermarriage allows them a claim to Jerusalem and its Gihon Spring. That is, up until Herod Antipas divorces his first wife, the Nabataean Phaesalis, for Herodias. First Century Jewish historian Josephus again, ties Phaesalis, her dad Aretas, and John the Baptist’s stories together in ** you do not have permission to see this link **.
This period of Nabataean chocolate in the Jewish peanut butter, or jelly in the peanut butter, which I guess is called the Intertestamental Period, happens to coincide with the absence of living “god-kings” claiming hegemony over the Levant (to recap, a living “god-king” commissioned the Septuagint) until the practice of apotheosis is revived by Gaius Julius Caesar Germanicus (12 CE-41 CE.)
One million percent copyright Nimmuo of Cyrene
Revelation 22:16
I am the root and the offspring of David, and the bright morning star.”
This is a full lineage claim in my opinion:
1. Tribal. David’s root and David’s offspring. The Book of Isaiah requires Jesse’s lineage (David’s root).
2. High Royalty. The bright morning star is a descriptor of Venus, which marked a claim to high royalty since at least the world’s first empire, with Sargon of Akkad.
Closer to the First Century, Caesar even claimed a direct lineage to Venus as Aphrodite. Academic consensus gives Aphrodite’s origin as Ishtar. Scholar Aren Wilson-Wright proposes that the name Aphrodite originates as the Phoenician epithet ʾaprodīt, “The Sublime One” for Ishtar:
Linguistically, Aphrodite derives from ʾaprodīt, a feminine elative form of the root prd meaning ‘unique, excellent, sublime’. As such, it would be semantically opaque to the Greek sailors who brought the cult of Aphrodite back to the Aegean, unlike the other Greek epithets applied to this goddess.
** you do not have permission to see this link **
– Wilson-Wright, Aren M. (2019). “Venus’s Name: The Divine Name Aphrodite as a Phoenician Epithet.” Paper presented at the European Association of Biblical Studies (EABS) Annual Conference, Warsaw, Poland, August 2019.
Arabian rulers also claimed their royalty through Venus, but via the male deity ‘Attar, who has a more ancient origin. Sheiks or tribal kings under the Arabian Confederacy styled themselves as Son of ‘Attar in the Son of [Deity] style. I think this begs the question, “How would their king-of-kings style themselves?”
The male ‘Attar represents solely the morning star aspect of Venus, and it is suggested that it was syncretized with the Sumerian Inanna to form the Sumero-Akkadian Ishtar, who represents both morning and evening aspects of Venus.
Again, Wiki for ease:
It has been suggested that ʿAṯtar as a masculine Venus god was syncretized into the depiction of feminine Venus goddess Inanna in her depiction as having a masculine beard
** you do not have permission to see this link **
Returning to a portion of Revelation 22:16 in the original Koine Greek:
ὁ ἀστὴρ ὁ λαμπρὸς ὁ πρωϊνός (ho astēr ho lampros ho prōinos)
The literal translation is “The star, the radiant [one], the dawn-[one/star].”
In my working hypothesis, in the Transjordan this descriptor may most closely match ‘Attar Shamayin, the deity that eventually becomes attached to the Quedarites who are theorized to provide the Arab lineage of the multi-lineage Nabataeans:
Does Jesus ever in the New Testament condemn polytheism, such as was the standard for Jewish teachers?
Atarsamain is twice mentioned in the annals of Ashurbanipal, king of the Neo-Assyrian Empire in the 7th century BC. The reference is to a?lu (sā) a-tar-sa-ma-a-a-in (“the people of Attar of Heaven”) who are said to have been defeated together with the Nebayot (Nebaioth/Nabataeans) and the Qedarites led by Yauta ben Birdadda, who was also known as “king of the Arabs”.[1]
(Yauta ben Birdadda — Yauta is constructed just like Yehuda, but with a lack of the West Semetic ‘h’ and the known interchangeable ‘t’ and ‘d’.)
So it is my original opinion that whenever a concept might be unknown to the intended audience in the New Testament, or whenever it is protocol to limit the use of the personal name, that a descriptor is made for it instead, like the bright morning star.
Descriptors is how I believe I deciphered The Mandaean Book of John, who they claim to be John the Baptist.
** you do not have permission to see this link **
I believe this great book to be a history of the world since the time of written language to John’s First Century.
Again, I believe the Mandaeans to be cultural reenactors of the world’s first written religion, while Jesus’ followers followed the modern iteration of it. This would be like Colonial Williamsburg reenacting the innovations made by the Founding Fathers, while Silicon Valley brings you Gemini Pro for free. This knowledge imo was in cuneiform, which ceases to be produced in the First Century.
Writing was an incredibly precious tool reserved for insulated groups whose trash even shows an immense amount of copies; does anyone really believe that they just kept forgetting history since writing’s invention in Sumeria?
The cipher
I believe The Mandaean Book of John uses the cultural diffusion of the world’s first written religion to discuss the sensitive political history of the world in a way that otherwise would have um, very, very strong opinions by competing empires if it wasn’t encoded.
To recap — Sumeria, the world’s first civilization had an orderly list of gods, the earliest of which puts first the unmanifested father, Anu the Great (think Anush/Enoch) and his manifested son, Enki, the Lord of Life.
Because it is Enki that is given anûtu, his father’s authority, I believe that Enki in anútu is what forms the Mandaean descriptor of The Great Life, Hayyi Rabba. The Mandaeans also use simply “The Life,” Hayyi, without the “Great,” as a descriptor that seems attached to a different historical layer.
In Mandaeanism, which again is the religion of John the Baptist’s followers, Hayyi ‘The Life” is also counted as the “First Life,” whose successors are considered the increasingly distorted images of the First Life.
FIRST LIFE THROUGH FOURTH LIFE DECODED BY NIMMUO OF CYRENE:
FIRST LIFE
• Hayyi, meaning “The Life” in Mandaean.
• Sumeria – World’s First Civilization c. 3100-2334 BCE
• Enki, Lord of Life
Post-Hellenism, in which many Mandaean texts are committed to paper, there is a trend where deities become named as their attributes, ie the Lord of Life can become The Life. (However, I believe I see this naming convention even earlier.)
SECOND LIFE
• Yushamin the Emanated One, imo reading as “Ya of Heavens” and if so, “Living [One/God] of Heavens”
• Akkadian Empire, World’s First Empire, 2334 BCE-
• Ea, “The Living One” in anûtu with Anu “Sky/Heavens”
Ea is academically recognized as the iteration of Sumerian Enki, and the Eblaite Hayya is now academically recognized as a an iteration of Ea. “Yushamin the Peacock,” as he is called in ** you do not have permission to see this link **, seems in my original opinion to simply be Haya’s homonym for peacock that is discussed by scholar Mark Weeden:
For some reason the word for “peacock” is also written using his name (ha‘ia) in an Old Babylonian text (Veldhuis 2004: 251-52).
** you do not have permission to see this link **
Haya (one y) and Hayya (two ys) are considered by many scholars to be the same or iterated deities, and so while it isn’t academic consensus, Weeden discusses them both in that paper.
In comparison with Enki, there is a sharp rise in light and celestial characteristics associated with Ea, such as The Way of Ea. And so Ea and Iah/Aah/Yah/Jah, the deity symbolized by but not actually the moon, (similar to Jesus being symbolized by but not actually the cross) share shining, a star field, underworld running water, rebirth, and ‘being in Anu’ as shared characteristics.
There is no academic dispute that the arrow of cultural diffusion was mostly one-way, Mesopotamia to Egypt. Divine concepts in artwork, basketry and pottery styles appear first in Mesopotamia, and then appear in Egypt.
Wiki for ease:
** you do not have permission to see this link **
Egypt–Mesopotamia relations were the relations between the civilizations of ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia, in the Middle East. They seem to have developed from the 4th millennium BCE, starting in the Uruk period for Mesopotamia (circa 4000–3100 BCE) and the half a millennium younger Gerzean culture of Prehistoric Egypt (circa 3500–3200 BCE), and constituted a largely one way body of influences from Mesopotamia into Egypt.[3][4]
THIRD LIFE
• Abator — Abator Muzania, meaning Abator of the Scales, judge of souls, come on, y’all! Imo Abator is simply the descriptor “He of Abot”, as ** you do not have permission to see this link ** is Osiris’ city name before it is Hellenized.
• Egyptian Empire c. 1550-1070 BCE
•Osiris
Fourth Life
• Ptahil, literally “Creator god”
• Greek Empire c. 776 BCE-30 BCE
• Serapis
In the Hellenistic period, Serapis functions as the resurrected form of the creator-god Ptah, and eventually syncretizes a whole kitchen sink of Creator gods into a singular “Creator god.”
Egypt itself has this clear iteration chain in its syncretization receipts: Osiris-Iah, Ptah-Osiris, Osiris-Apis (Serapis).
The earliest mention of a “Sarapis” occurs in the disputed death scene of ** you do not have permission to see this link ** and Ea as Šar Apsi seems to be the deity intended in the description of Alexander’s death.
Wiki for ease: ** you do not have permission to see this link **
yawn Sarapis and Ea unconnected? Alexander Zeus-Ammon spent his final days in Babylon receiving the ritual ministrations of Ea’s own priests. This is during the ascent of the Sumero-Akkadian Revival, so a Sumerian-style pun that unites all the Creator Gods is elite tier.
Fourth Life’s Son
• Yukashar, literally “Source of Radiance.” Julius Caesar was the inspiration for the Radiate Crown because he was believed to ascend into a star—the Sidus Iulium comet—that was called radiant. Imo this also reads “Ya of Caesar,” and thus, “Living Caesar.”
Roman Empire 27 BCE-
• Caesar
Caesar, of course, is the only Roman Emperor to receive the Living God title, immortalized in the ** you do not have permission to see this link **
Θεὸς Ἐπιφανής
Theos Epiphanes
Manifest/Living God
In Right-Ginza 4, Yukashar is named as Yukashar-kana, kana meaning “place.” I read this as Caesar of [Place], since each region under him swapped this part out in his title inscriptions.
Ephesus’ full ** you do not have permission to see this link **brings up divine lineage and being a savior of humankind pretty similarly to someone we know:
The cities and peoples and tribes in Asia honour Gaius Julius Caesar, son of Gaius, the high priest and imperator and consul for a second time, the manifest god descended from Ares and Aphrodite, and the common saviour of humankind
Is it a coincidence that the appearance of religions track with the revivals of living deification in the Ancient Near East, like with Hammurabi, Caesar, Gaius Julius, and the Aksumites?
I believe my hypothesis neatly explains why Yushamin places his children in orbit, because Mesopotamian deities are uniquely astral, like Ea:
They brought Yushamen, set him on Earth,
and said to him,
“Give us your children, so they may orbit Earth — Mandaean Book of John
And why Abator of the Scales weighs souls brought by a ferry to a netherworld gate, like Osiris:
a ferry of souls carrying them, over to Abator’s house — Mandaean Book of John
…about Abator. He came, cast him down from his throne, set him at the Nether Gate, and said to him, “Go, and be the judge… — Mandaean Book of John
He set up the throne for Abator, and placed the scales before him, so that he might weigh the souls of the dead to see if they are pure enough to return to the World of Light — Mandaean Scroll of Abator
And why Ptahil acts with the might of a large animal pounding in the columns, evoking the Serapeum ** you do not have permission to see this link **, like Serapis:
Ptahil pounded in the columns — Mandaean Book of John
And why Yukashar is a king of a great palace who weaves a crown, ie wreath, like Caesar:
Hibel called forth with Life’s voice, and brought light to the great palace.
Yukashar achieved success with it, and wove the crown from start to finish. — Mandaean Book of John
Once you understand that the First Life, Second Life, Third Life, Fourth Life, and Fourth Life’s son depict the cultural diffusion of tutelary deities across Empires, the Mandaean texts seem to describe an almost six millennium saga (timeline matching the Septuagint) just as exciting as Star Wars. A saga of millenniums a long time ago, and far away, such as that it would take a Millennium Falcon to travel it.
Dr. McGrath, I hope your ears are burning!
– Nimmuo of Cyrene the Wish-Was-Rich writing to you from above the cave springs of my birth, copyright 2026
Dedicated to Gamaliel and my sherpa
Matthew 13:35
that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the prophet, saying, “I will open My mouth in parables; I will utter things which have been kept secret from the foundation of the world
Nasoraeans — “shup uuuup”.
From Hadrian Augustus to Servianus the consul, Greetings. The land of Egypt (praises of which you have recounted to me, dear Servianus) I have found to be wholly light-minded, fickle, and following after rumors. There, those worshipping Serapis are Christians, and devotees of Serapis are {calling/styling themselves} ‘bishops of Christ’. There is no chief of the Jewish synagogue, no Samaritan, no Christian presbyter, who is not an astrologer, bird-diviner, or fortune-teller. Even Patriarch himself, if he comes to Egypt, is forced on the one hand to show reverence Serapis, and on the other to Christ” — c. 134 CE
** you do not have permission to see this link **
Recapping my Mandaean (John the Baptist’s followers, the priests of which are Nasoraean) First Life-Fourth Life cipher:
• Enki v 1.0
• Ea v 2.0
• Osiris v 3.0
• Serapis v 4.0
So, syncretizing male water ablution salvific figures may not just be simply a matchy-matchy continuity of function, it may even reflect an understanding of cultural diffusion.
Compare the ** you do not have permission to see this link ** in John 5:1-15. Also Isis, Osiris/Serapis’ consort that reached a zenith of status with Serapis, experienced a continuity of function with Mary veneration.
As I remarked at the outset, very few ancient materials are available which offer any sort of explanation of either the nature or the meaning of the ablution rites conducted within the Isis-Sarapis cult. Of particular value are a few passages found in the Metamorphoses of Apuleius, for they offer an indication of the manner in which ablutions were carried out. According to Metamorphoses 11.23, before Lucius underwent his initiation, he was led by the priest ‘‘to the neighboring public baths’’ (ad proxumas balneas) in order to be purified…
— ** you do not have permission to see this link **Robert A. Wild, 1981, Brill
Christian apologist Tertullian (165-225 CE) thought that Serapis was formed from Joseph’s good deeds being exaggerated into miracles. Oh no 🐢ian, how could that even happen?
It is therefore a small matter that they have also deified a man—him, I mean, whom not Egypt only, or Greece, but the whole world worships, and the Africans swear by; about whose state also all that helps our conjectures and imparts to our knowledge the semblance of truth is stated in our own (sacred) literature. For that Serapis of yours was originally one of our own saints called Joseph.
Returning to Matthew 13:35’s quote:
I will open My mouth in parables; I will utter things which have been kept secret from the foundation of the world
Sumerians seem to value intelligence over might, the benefits of civilization, and grace; and cast any other group than themselves as rougher. So does setting information to be found by only those with emotional intelligence avoid upsetting assumptions about reality, and selects for grateful seekers when they reach a point in their own emotional development where they know what to look for?
The foundation of the world ≠ the creation of the universe, or the creation of earth, or even the creation of humanity in Sumerian lore, such as is revived in the Antiquarian Revival of Seleucid Uruk — the “foundation of the world” corresponds to the installation of the mes, the beginning of civilization.
Genesis 34:8
Hamor the father of Shechem went out to Jacob to talk with him.
I found a 10/10 no notes blogpost last week — in 2017, Blambore, an independent researcher with a claimed engineering background, found that since the original Masoretic Hebrew does not use spaces between words, ie scripto continua, that the phrase “Hamor, father of” (חמור אבי) is orthographically identical to the name “Hammurabi” (חמוראבי), and claims that this unusual phrasing (which has puzzled scholars) reveals Abraham’s Lord as Hammurabi:
Indeed, as there was no space between letters in ancient Hebrew, there is no difference in the spelling of “Hamor, father of” (חמור אבי) and that of “Hammurabi” (חמוראבי). This expression therefore makes for a perfect play on word, as the non-initiates will always read and understand it as “Hamor, father of Shechem”.
** you do not have permission to see this link **
I’m shocked, of course.
🤔 You mean the Lord that Abraham builds an altar to in Mamre the Amorite’s oak grove?
So, archaeologically-attested Shechem is fortified from c. 1750 BCE-1150 BCE:
• 1760 BCE This is what the Orthodox yeshiva Ohr Somayach’s ** you do not have permission to see this link ** offers as a ballpark date for their entry “Abraham and Sarah begin teaching Torah.” Ohr Somayach also ballparks Hammurabi giving his Codes of Hammurabi with this same 1760 BCE ballpark date (to be historically precise, it’s 1763 BCE.) Codes of Hammurabi = teaching Torah?
• 1750 BCE is again, the year that Egyptologist and ** you do not have permission to see this link ** Dr. Phillippe Bohstrom posits for Abraham in Ur, based on records of the first shepherd incursion.
• 1750 BCE is also of course, Hammurabi’s final departure year, when he would customarily grant blessings conferring land use rights to those with successful campaigns, like that 1750 BCE shepherd incursion in Ur. (Bambore, the discoverer of Hammurabi’s name in the phrase “Hamor, father of,” cites 1752 BCE as Hammurabi’s end of reign, while 1750 BCE is the Brittanica dating as well as most other sites.)
Genesis 33:18
Jacob came safely to the city of Shechem, which is in the land of Canaan, on his way from Paddan-aram; and he camped before the city
Archaeologically, Shechem only becomes anything resembling a ** you do not have permission to see this link ** after 1750 BCE, where it receives sudden fortification — meaning that Jacob arriving to the city of Shechem also takes place within the Ohr Somayach/Dr. Bohstrom/Serene timeline.
Genesis 10:34
Jesus answered, “Is it not written in your law, ‘I said, you are gods’?
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John 1:1
In the beginning was the Word…
To recap, I believe that John the Baptist’s followers, the Mandaeans, are essentially re-enacting the world’s first written religion, while Jesus was running the latest version of this ‘software’.
I’ve claimed that the Mandaean concept of Emanations seem to describe how the original Lord of Life epithet iterates across civilizations — Sumerian, Akkadian, Egyptian and Greek.
Enki to Ea — academic consensus.
Osiris to Serapis — academic consensus.
Ea to Osiris — Serene and Serene consensus.
So how could a Mesopotamian deity iterate in Egypt? The answer is That Simple — Ea’s son Asar has Osiris’ original name, Asar.
• Ea’s son Asar’s name in logogram: City + Eye (“Watcher of the City”).
• Osiris/Asar’s name in logogram: Throne + City (“Watcher of the Throne”).
To me this reads as a deity transported by a royal family, the same as the Nabataean deity Dushara. And in the Mandaean Diwan of Abator (Scroll of Abator), the Third Life’s symbol is the throne. Reminder that I think that the Mandaean Third Life describes Osiris, and that I think that the Third Life’s name of Abator likely works out to “He/One of Abot,” Osiris’ city of Abydos’ original name.
Osiris shows up during Egypt’s Fifth Dynasty c. 2498 BC–c. 2345 BC, faaaar after the “** you do not have permission to see this link **” that begins c. 3600 BCE. Wiki link for ease.
The first genetic background of an Egyptian high-status Third/Fourth Dynasty individual was sequenced in 2025 (all bolding mine):
For the first time in 2025, a study was able to give insights into the genetic background of Early Dynastic Egyptians, by sequencing the whole genome of an Old Kingdom adult male Egyptian of relatively high-status, radiocarbon-dated to 2855–2570 BCE, with funerary practices archeologically attributed to the Third and Fourth Dynasty, which was excavated in Nuwayrat (Nuerat, نويرات), in a cliff 265 km south of Cairo.[76][77] Before this study, whole-genome sequencing of ancient Egyptians from the early periods of Egyptian Dynastic history had not yet been accomplished, mainly because of the problematic DNA preservation conditions in Egypt.[76]
Let’s get granular with the “two-source model”:
Most of his genome derives from Neolithic North African ancestry, itself rooted in a Levantine expansion into northeast Africa ~8,000 years ago.
The remaining ~20% of his genetic ancestry derives from populations of the eastern Fertile Crescent, including Mesopotamia.[76] The resulting genetic profile is most closely represented by a two-source model, in which 77.6% ± 3.8% of the ancestry corresponded to genomes from the Middle Neolithic Moroccan site of Skhirat-Rouazi (dated to 4780–4230 BCE), which itself consists of predominantly (76.4 ± 4.0%) Levant Neolithic ancestry and (23.6 ± 4.0%) minor Iberomaurusian ancestry, while the remainder (22.4% ± 3.8%) was most closely related to known genomes from Neolithic Mesopotamia (dated to 9000-8000 BCE).[76][79].)
To sum up, they found about 20% of Mesopotamian DNA in a noble Egyptian’s remains of the Third or Fourth Dynasty. Osiris first appears during the Fifth Dynasty. This is plenty of time to facilitate cultural diffusion.
Mesopotamian Asar, later called Asarluhi/Asalluhi functions mostly like the agent of his father Ea, with special associations with the netherworld:
There are several examples in the early texts where the borders between abzu and the netherworld are fuzzy. For example, P. Stein- keller has claimed that abzu, as it appears in the Zami hymn preceding the hymn dedicated to Asar can be considered synonymous (“virtually identical”) with the netherworld, i.e., the land of the dead.
This extra emphasis on the netherworld is where Osiris could come in.
** you do not have permission to see this link **
• Mesopotamian Asar/Asalluhi has an epithet of “** you do not have permission to see this link **” because he judges people at the river.
• Egyptian Asar/Osiris judges people at the river.
• Mesopotamian Asar/Asalluhi is the “leopard prince.”
• Egyptian Asar/Osiris’s priests wear leopard to embody him.
• Mesopotamian Asar/Asalluhi The folk etymology for “Asar-” describes how he fertilizes garden greenery with his water.
In Enūma eliš, col. vii, ll. 1–2 (Lambert 2013, 124–125) Asar (dasar-re) is described as an agricultural deity explained in Akkadian based on dividing asar-re into elements a (“water”), sar (“garden, greenery”) and rig (“to donate”) in Sumerian (see Deimel 1945, 262–263).
• Egyptian Asar/Osiris is colored green for how he fertilizes agriculture with his water.
• Egyptian Asar/Asalluhi is:
“He who raises the dead to life.”
• Mesopotamian Asar/Osiris is:
“The One who executes reanimation.” s-ꜥnḫ
Were there any ancient people claiming that there had been early cultural diffusion in Egypt? A group who claimed to be ethnically Sabaean but left because of a deteriorating dam, and whose name root “Sab,” in Aramaic means “wash,” which could possibly be connected to Asarluhi’s appended “-luhi,” which Assyriologist Dr. Lambert thought meant “to wash”?
The Ethiopians say that the Egyptians are one of their colonies which was brought into Egypt by Osiris”. — 1rst Century BCE Greek historian Diodorus Siculus
Pretty easy cipher, right? Yeah, none of you billions of people got it. Gets carried by teddy bears like C-3PO.
I hope to improve my working hypothesis “How Government Made God” with this new-to-me information. And additionally considering the ancient Pantera commentary around Jesus, and panther being just another name for leopard (for which I’ve earlier explored the Persian myth around Rostam, who I believe is an excellent candidate for having an Asar precedent), and Asar’s attribute of eloquence (compare Luke 4:22 and Luke 21:15), I propose that Jesus is first acting in the living image of the son, Asar, and then in Revelation as the father, Ea, a name which again, scholar Peeter Espak interprets as “The Living One.” This would likely be in anútu, in Anu the unmanifested all-that-is deity’s power.
And that this explains the persistent comparisons of Enki, Ea, Osiris (and even that one Roman with Serapis) to Jesus — because the Antiquarian Revival that swept almost the entire Ancient Near East, including books like Enoch (Mandaean Anush), was slowest to arrive in really rural Galilee.
Apocalyptic literature — predicting the signs of the beginning or end of an age — makes more sense when you just dug up millennia of golden age cycles.
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Next
I decode the Egyptian deity Iah/Yah as “Ea in the lunar god Sin,” the 28th lunar day in the Babylonian hemerologies.
** you do not have permission to see this link **?
• Sappatu/Sabbath?
• A seeming phonetic match with Ea and the theophoric element “Ya” of Ea’s Eblaite name, Hayya, that traces to the proto-Semetic root word for Life?
• A West Semetic-speaking culture in Mesopotamia known by scholars for adding “h”s to elite names — such as that Ya- could become Ya-h — that then settled in Egypt in the Early Dynastic period that coincides with the first appearance of Iah/Yah inscriptions?
• Iah/Yah being symbolized by a 28th-day-looking ** you do not have permission to see this link ** on top of an (imo lunar) disk?
It’s all there.
Sin and Ea happen to become, at a later date, jointly worshiped in Mesopotamian ** you do not have permission to see this link **, which is academically attested to be the Ur of the Chaldees (an updated name, like Egypt for Kemit) in Genesis 11:28, Genesis 11:31, Genesis 15:7, and Nehemiah 9:7 that is described as Abraham’s point of origin.
This potential syncretism, that is my original hypothesis, would be merged similarly to how Amun + Ra is in the deity Amun-Ra where the Amun is silent, or like how Ra + Horus were merged in Akhenaten’s the Aten, who again was officially named Ra-Horarkhty meaning, “Horus of the Two Horizons.”
The hypothetical syncretism of Ea (salvific deity associated with freshwater ablution) and Sin (lunar deity associated with pastoralists) in the context of Early Dynastic cultural diffusion — the period where we see major, mostly one-way Mesopotamian-to-Egypt cultural influence — would fit into Ancient Egypt’s propensity to unify two disparately-themed deities in order to represent a polity, while Hammurabi acting as the living image of Bel Saddu/El Shaddai (if Lord of the Mountains) being Abraham’s personal god would also fit neatly into the general worship patterns of the 18th C BCE ANE, particularly the existence of an Amorite 14th Dynasty in Egypt.
Enki’s son, Asar
In Enūma eliš, col. vii, ll. 1–2 (Lambert 2013, 124–125) Asar (asar-re)…
— ** you do not have permission to see this link **
** you do not have permission to see this link **Phd thesis for Andreas Johandi, 2019
Enki’s son’s name can also be read as Ašar-re, and because a logogram’s double consonants transliterate to single consonants, as Ašare/Ashare — I think it’s likely the same deity as the millennias-later Nabataean deity Dushara/Dusares. Again, the Nabataeans have a part-Mesopotamian origin, per Dr. David Graf.
I’ve already made a detailed case for Dushara mapping to Enki/Ea characteristics like the Petra pool complex, freshwater ablution, Life epithets, benevolent character, healing praise, extra-curly beard resembling water, and being specific to the royal family, like Ea was. The Nabataean deity Dushara representing Ea’s son could make sense, especially considering the rise of Marduk in Babylonian cosmology, who absorbs both Ea and Asar’s myths. It is indeed the Antiquarian Revival of Seleucid Uruk that repairs the Babylonian “fork.’
The nearby Shara mountain range is considered to be a possible origin of the name Dushara, working out to Dhu Shara [One/He] of the Shara [Mountains], but there is no academic consensus for that name origin as of yet. That works for my hypothesis because nearby mountains are widely considered by scholars to be named for Mesopotamian gods:
• Mount Sinai (Sin/Suen the supreme deity, lunar)
• Mount Nebo (Nabu, scribal deity)
And there’s also academic consensus for some early Levant toponyms having a Mesopotamianized origin, like Beth-Shemesh originally denoting a temple for Shamash. So considering that Asar ranks very prominently in early traditions, why wouldn’t he get a diaspora-given toponym, too? The Shara mountains are literally the source of Petra’s running water.
Asar is later called Asarluhi/Asalluhi (luh means “wash”), for which the following are the deity’s characteristics taken directly from texts:
Revivification
I am Asalluḫi, by whose rites the dead become alive
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Crown of Thornbushes
prince, the great prince, has fixed firmly a holy crown for you in your precinct — O Eridug with a crown placed on your head, bringing forth thriving thornbushes
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On a thornwood fire you scatter a censer of flour and juniper. You libate pure water and invoke Ea and Asalluhi
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I am the prickle of the thornbush
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My bolding.
The Lord of Exorcism that Washes Sins Away In The River
Asalluhi, lord of exorcism.
19 May my guilt be distant, 3,600 leagues away,
20 May the river receive it from me and take it down to its depths.
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Shepherd of The People
Context: at this point in history Marduk absorbs Ea and Asalluhi myths (here scholars easily divide out which sections are which, because the ancient authors simply introduce each section of attributes by the absorbed deity name:
Anshar gives him a second name, Asalluhi…With water and oil they swore…
“The son, our champion, shall be the highest.
“His lordship shall be supreme, he shall have no rival,
“He shall be the shepherd of the people of this land…They shall tell of his ways…He shall do the same on earth as what he brought to pass in heaven…Let the people of this land be divided as to gods,“(But) by Whatever name We call him, let him be our god…
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John 10:14
I am the good shepherd; I know my own and my own know me
Helping the Needy and Saving The Weak
I am Asalluhi, who protects the needy, who [saves the
weak]
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Matthew 25:40
Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.
Forgiveness of Sins
Ea has taken hold of the hand of the sick, Šamaš has established his freedom, Asalluhi has established his clearing from obligations
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Water of Life
In the morning you set up within the reed-hut three thrones for Ea, Šamaš and Asalluḫi…[You recite] the incantation Water of life, the river rising in flood
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Revelation 22:1
The angel showed me a river filled with the water of life, as clear as crystal.
John 7:37-38
On the last day, the climax of the festival, Jesus stood and shouted to the crowds, “Anyone who is thirsty may come to me! 38 Anyone who believes in me may come and drink! For the Scriptures declare, ‘Rivers of living water will flow from his heart.’”
So again, when Jesus is quoted as saying, “For the Scriptures declare…” and that scripture is not found in the Hebrew Bible, ** you do not have permission to see this link ** scripture is he talking about?
Fragrance
Is there anyone else in the Bible other than Jesus that is gifted fragrance at birth (Matthew 2:11), very large quantities of fragrance at the tomb (John 19:39), and perfume that cost more than a year’s wages (John 12:1-8)?
“princely aroma/fragrance”
— ** you do not have permission to see this link ** PhD Candidate Andreas Johandi, 2020
Fragrance (basically healing substances) that is not incense is uniquely associated in Mesopotamian cosmology with Asalluhi. Princely aroma/fragrance is a word applied to Asalluhi’s city and also to that of his father Enki/Ea in mentioning Asalluhi.
And the type of perfume bottle described in Matthew 26:6–13; Mark 14:3–9; Luke 7:36–50; and John 12:1–8 is distinctly Nabataean.
It is also probable that the story of the “jar of ointment,” broken and its contents poured over the head of Jesus, was in reality a Nabataean unguentarium, the usual container for luxury ointments which were primarily manufactured by the Nabataeans and which were so manufactured that they had to be broken in order to use the contents.
— ** you do not have permission to see this link ** by Philip Hammond, Adjunct Professor of Anthropology at Arizona State University and Emeritus Professor of Anthropology at University of Utah, 2003
Protection from Snakes and Scorpions
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Luke 10:19
See, I have given you authority to tread on snakes and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy; and nothing will hurt you.
Eloquence and wisdom
Asarluhi penetrates everything…Lordly son of the abzu, endowed with holy wisdom…eloquent one…
Luke 21:15
“…for I will provide you eloquence and wisdom…”
The question for me so far is, “Are there any other Ancient Near East deities that are characterized as an eloquent and wise son who helps the needy and weak, washes sins away in a river, and is a healing exorcist by whose rites the dead become alive?” The closest, but not complete, correlations seems to be shared with:
•Ea/Enki, Asar/Asalluhi’s father
• Ea/Enki’s son Dumuzid which is possibly a role name for “rightful son,” and who’s namesake Dumuzid the Fisherman shares Asar/Asalluhi’s origin city of Kuara
• Asar/Asalluhi’s intercession of sins at the river aspect seems to overlap with Lahmu meaning “The Hairy One,” in the context of Ea/Enki’s servant, whose ascribed character I believe has many commonalities with John the Baptist.
Matthew 16:13-16
…He said to them, “But who do you say that I am?”…Simon Peter said, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.”
Well, the son of The Living One from Akkadian times to the Antiquarian Revival of Seleucid Uruk is Asar/Asalluhi, who is Ea/Enki’s son. Not only that, sometimes the word One is used in place of God in variants of early Gospel texts.
As I’ve written before, the cultural transmission of the Antiquarian Revival of Seleucid Uruk could reach 1rst C Galilee-Peraea and Judaea via Judaea’s border kingdom of Nabataea and their Mesopotamianized traditions, perhaps through:
• the Herodian Dynasty (as their maternal founder is the Nabataean Cypros)
• King Herod Antipas (yes, technically tetrarch) of Galilee-Perea’s first wife, the Nabataean Phaesalis, being that Josephus links them together in AJ 18.5 when John the Baptist protests the second marriage with Herodias
• Chuza, Joanna’s husband with the classically Nabataean name mentioned in Luke 8:3, if not other actors.
Lastly, as we’ve discussed in another thread, I think that Jesus seems to possibly be harmonizing or folding in the traditions that seem to me to be iterated from the original Sumerian written religion in a process of cultural diffusion:
• Ea/Enki/Hayya (in Anuship)
• Iah/Aah/Yah
• Asar (Asarluḫi/Asalluhi, Osiris imo, Marduk-Asalluhi that imo potentially incorporates Dumuzi themes)
• Serapis (Osiris, Apis, Ptah, Dionysus, and whatever Creator Gods).
My observation also so far is that the original Sumero-Akkadian father and son roles seems to be the core of it, and that possibly re-enacting the traditions of later iterations may be different than identifying in the image of, such as Jesus identifying as the Son of the Living God in Matthew 16:13-17 and in Revelation 1:18 saying,
“I am the Living One…”
1. The man who rages in his house…is [the Lord]…
Jesus flips the tables.
John 2:15-16
So he made a whip out of cords, and drove all from the temple courts, both sheep and cattle; he scattered the coins of the money changers and overturned their tables. To those who sold doves he said, “Get these out of here! Stop turning my Father’s house into a market!
1. …He is held fast in the prison.
Jesus is detained.
Mark 15:1
…They bound Jesus, led him away, and handed him over to Pilate.
7. [The [Seat of Investiture] where] he goes, is the house at the edge of (the place of) the ordeal; they question him there.
Jesus is questioned by Pilate, who is sitting on the seat of investiture, near the Crucifixion site.
John 19:13
When Pilate heard this, he brought Jesus out and sat down on the judge’s seat (Bēma) at a place known as The Stone Pavement (which in Aramaic is Gabbatha).
11. [The lady] who goes away, is going to the graveyard and looking for him.
Mary goes looking for Jesus at the tomb.
John 20:1-2
Early on the first day of the week, while it was still dark, Mary Magdalene came to the tomb…
12. …his guards; they are appointed over him, and guard [him].
The Guard at The Tomb
Matthew 27:65
Pilate said to them, “You have a guard of soldiers; go, make it as secure as you can.”
13. …he fled and we[nt up] there, [thinking: “Per]haps I will be saved.”
Jesus goes to the Mount of Olives and prays to be saved from the Crucifixion.
Luke 22:39-42
Jesus went out as usual to the Mount of Olives, and his disciples followed him… He withdrew about a stone’s throw beyond them, knelt down and prayed, “Father, if you are willing, take this cup from me…”
15. …the red wool with which he is clothed, are the blows with which he was struck. They are [dyed] with his blood.
Jesus is given typical Roman soldier affection.
John 19:1
He had Jesus flogged
Jesus wears the scarlet robe.
Matthew 27:28
They stripped him and put a scarlet robe on him.
15. […] who does not go with him, saying: “I am not a criminal; I have nothing to do [with him]!
Peter denies Jesus.
Luke 22:56-58
But Peter was following at a distance… “This man also was with him.” But he denied it, saying, “Woman, I do not know him.” A little later someone else, on seeing him, said, “You also are one of them.” But Peter said, “Man, I am not!”
20.[The head] which hangs from the crossbar of the Lady of Babylon, is the head of the criminal who assi[sted and ad]vised him
Jesus is crucified with criminals.
Luke 23:33
…And the criminals were also crucified.
The “whore of Babylon.”
Revelation 17:5
And upon her forehead was a name written, Mystery, Babylon The Great, The Mother Of Harlots And Abominations Of The Earth.
22. …sprinkles about the stamens of the date palms there: [(that) is because] [the Lord] went to (the place of) the river ordeal.
Jesus is greeted by palm tree branches and branches spread on the road.
Matthew 21:18
A very large crowd spread their cloaks on the road, while others cut branches from the trees and spread them on the road.
John 12:17
They took branches of palm trees and went out to meet Jesus. They shouted, “’Praise Him!’ ‘Welcome’
Occuring after Jesus is baptized in the river.
Matthew 3:13
Then Jesus came from Galilee to the Jordan to be baptized…
24. The pig reeds which they throw…
Jesus is struck by a reed (multiple, implied by the “they”).
Mark 15:19
They struck his head with a reed…
27. …his people; they [go] wailing in front of him.
Luke 23:27
A large number of people followed him, including women who mourned and wailed for him.”
30. His clothing …are his robes; they carried [them off]
Soldiers take Jesus‘ clothes.
John 19:23
When the soldiers crucified Jesus, they took his clothes...
35. …pleads (his case)… “I only did what was good…! What is [my] crime?”
Jesus responds to the Pharisees.
John 10:32
Jesus replied, “I have shown you many good works from the Father. For which of these are you going to stone me?”
44. They ask [The False Friend], “Who is the criminal?”
Mark 14:43-44
Judas, one of the Twelve, suddenly arrived…”The One I kiss,” he said, “He’s the One; arrest Him and take Him away under guard.”
44. …[muzzle] the criminal…
Matthew 27:14
But he gave him no answer, not even to a single charge, so that the governor was greatly amazed.
47. The Lord…in (his) terror, he quickly thirsts for water
Jesus thirsts during the Crucifixion.
John 19:28
I thirst…
49. The water [which he] mixes [with ……] and pours out, is the turbid water [……].
Jesus is likely offered posca on the cross. Posca is a wine-vinegar drink that is mostly water, diluted at 4:1 and even 10:1 ratios.
Matthew 27:34
…they gave him wine to drink, mixed with gall, but when he tasted it, he would not drink it.
50. The flour which is much too plentiful…
Nicodemus brings 100 pounds in aloes and myrrh. Mirroring the offering of a mixture of flour and sacred aromatic substance.
John 19:39
Nicodemus, who had at first come to Jesus by night, also came, bringing a mixture of myrrh and aloes, weighing about a hundred pounds.
52. The water for (washing) the hands which they bring near, is here he wept.
Pontius Pilate washes his hands.
Matthew 27:24
So when Pilate saw that he could do nothing, but rather that a riot was beginning, he took some water and washed his hand
After Jesus weeps in the Garden of Gethsemane.
Hebrews 5:7
…Jesus offered up prayers and supplications, with loud cries and tears, to the one who was able to save him from death…
60. Go and tell the good news…
The Gospels literally mean the good news.
Mark 1:15
Repent and believe the good news!
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And that is the end of the Marduk Ordeal. I used descriptors instead of names in [brackets] where [Lord] Bel, [Lady] Belitu, [Seat of Investiture] Akitu House, and [False Friend] a descriptor I came up with for the Lady of Babylon, who elsewhere in this text called this Lord brother in private as an honorific, and then identified him as a criminal in public.
Marduk is of course, Enki/Ea’s son role who assimilates Enki/Ea’s first-born son Asalluhi and two other minor tutelary deities. Within the identity of Marduk-Asalluhi, one finds other commonalities with Passion Week, such as the crown of thornbushes, the forgiveness of sins, perfume, river ablution, and the miraculous healings of the common man.
How was one assumed to become a King of Kings in Revelation 19:16, a title only associated with Nebuchadnezzer in the Hebrew Bible, without the traditions of Nebuchadnezzer’s supreme deity, Marduk?
The Marduk Ordeal is presupposed to be a basis for the Substitute King ritual called the Sar Puhi, which has so many additional commonalities matching the Crucifixion that prominent Assyriologist Simo Porpola wrote a book about it with an independent researcher Preston Kavanaugh called ** you do not have permission to see this link **.
Dr. Porpola just thinks that Jesus is the substitute, and doesn’t believe the Gnostics that it is Jesus who is instead substituted. It may be the first full book on religion I’ll read (apart from several of Dr. Ehrman’s books, which I’ve read because they were available at the library in print form.)
So, the Substitute King ritual is a switcheroo of identity, and virtually every ancestor of Jesus that is claimed to be so in the lineage lists offered in the Gospels performs a switcheroo of identity in the Hebrew Bible.
My newest find is David being substituted by a religious idol in 1 Samuel 19:11-16
Saul sent messengers to David’s house to keep watch over him, planning to kill him in the morning. David’s wife Michal told him, “If you do not save your life tonight, tomorrow you will be killed.”
So Michal let David down through the window; he fled away and escaped. Then Michal took an idol and laid it on the bed, covering it with a garment and putting some goats’ hair at the head. When Saul sent messengers to take David, she said, “He is sick.”
Then Saul sent the messengers to see David for themselves. He said, “Bring him up to me in the bed, that I may kill him.”
When the messengers came in, the idol was in the bed, with the covering of goats’ hair on its head.
Compare John 7:1-10
After this Jesus went about in Galilee. He did not wish to go about in Judea because the Jews were looking for an opportunity to kill him.
Now the Jewish Festival of Booths[a] was near. So his brothers said to him, “Leave here and go to Judea so that your disciples also may see the works you are doing, for no one who wants to be widely known acts in secret. If you do these things, show yourself to the world.” (For not even his brothers believed in him.)
Jesus said to them, “My time has not yet come, but your time is always here. The world cannot hate you, but it hates me because I testify against it that its works are evil. Go to the festival yourselves. I am notngoing to this festival, for my time has not yet fully come.” After saying this, he remained in Galilee.
But after his brothers had gone to the festival, then he also went, not publicly but, as it were, but in secret.
In secret. Substitute anyone else’s name in that story, convert it to the modern day, put it on Netflix, and ask someone if that would be considered a fake-out.
Titus Flavius Josephus glows with as much admiration as he can to a Roman audience writing of Agrippa, the King of the Jews who the Apostle Paul lavishly praises, for mysteriously escaping the prison of the Syrian governor under the cover of night. To translate that into English, that is a fake-out.
So not just fake-outs, but faking one’s own demise in the eyes of one’s own Jewish people was on trend for the First Century — Rabbi Yohannan Ben Zakkai, the founder of Rabbinical Judaism, does it elaborately. Titus Flavius Josephus, the Jewish First Century historian, does it simply.
Josephus writes of others of that century that plan to pretend-buy the farm, and some do so successfully and others unsuccessfully.
So again, when every ancestor of Jesus mentioned in the Hebrew Bible performs a “ruse for a good cause” — Abraham, Jacob, Tamar, Ruth, David, Elijah “in the guise of an Arab,” (in mishna), etc. — that is the pivot in their story where they gain in stature — which event is Jesus’?
In a physics-based world, what would be the common-sense explanation for someone surviving a crucifixion with enough energy to walk between towns?
In a physics-based world, if someone is telling their close friends about events ahead of time, would that be considered knowing about planned events?
Why can’t the ** you do not have permission to see this link ** be right for once, as a treat?
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