The Restoration of EL Elyon
as God Most High
Canaanite image of EL Elyon
EL was also the Greek god Saturn
Even Santa Claus with his lamp and white beard as well as Father Time are all direct iconic descendants of EL-Saturn
How EL Elyon got His name, "God Most High"
God Most High got His name for the same reason Jews observe the Sabbath as their holy day of the week. Besides being the name of their top God, EL was also the Canaanite name for the planet Saturn, the outermost planet on the ancient's seven planetary concentric shell "heavens" stacked above the earth.
Saturn then was the "highest" of all the planetary rulers, higher than the sun or moon orbiting the earth in the ancient's cosmology. "Saturn's Day", the seventh day of the week, with Saturn the "highest" of planetary rulers, is the root of the Hebrew Sabbath and the root meaning of why EL was called God Most High.
God established the concept of Monotheism through the Hebrew epic because the ancient pagans didn't have the concept clear in their minds that there was a Great Spirit over and above our human representations of It. However, monotheism as real belief system is quite impossible for human beings because our brains only conceive of things in terms of contrasts, i.e., "this vs. that". Oneness as a concept is really impossible to imagine. Try it, you always wind up contrasting One with more than one. Oneness cannot be comprehended by human minds with their "on/off" biochemistry. This is why monotheism as a concept quickly devolved under Hebrew religious definition into God the Father representing the whole Godhead. The Godhead, the Holy One of Heaven & Earth is above the Man, but it is spiritually important that human beings have a heavenly model of Man so God the Father becomes that model. But who really is "God the Father" in Judeo-Christian belief? Is it EL Elyon or Yahweh? For example, who said,
"War is against my wish; Plant the seeds of peace in the heart of the earth."
Yahweh or EL Elyon? It wasn't Yahweh but EL Elyon's statement found in ancient Canaanite cuniform texts since Yahweh was always a god of war while EL maintained peace.
The Spirit of Christ comes from EL, not Yahweh
"The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom"
--Proverbs 9:10
Yahweh's "love" was always conditional on obedience and only extended to those who showed obedience to his Law. All others Yahweh would punish. Yahweh rules by fear. EL rules with compassion and wisdom. When EL was God Most High in Canaan, the fearsome one was Baal, "the Lord" and EL's underling enforcer of Order over Chaos. The battle Yahweh wages against Baal reflects Yahweh's jealousy of Baal and Yahweh's lower state of spiritual consciousness. Jesus taught us not to fear our heavenly Father but to fear Him,
"the one who is able to destroy both body and soul in Gehenna."
--Luke 12: 4-5
"Do not fear, little flock, for it is your Father's good pleasure to give you the kingdom."
--Luke 12:32
Ever since the advent of Christ Christians have been uncomfortable with the Old Testament God of Israel. Christians have had to turn a blind eye to Yahweh's killer commandments in the Old Testament, ignoring the moral implications of worshiping a god that orders the deaths of innocents by the thousands, women and children included as verses in Joshua show. The Rastafarians made their own solution by creating "Jah" as "One Love" in their man-made transformation of Yahweh's characteristics into EL's through the Spirit of Christ. But it is still artifice. Yahweh just was never good enough to be Jesus' heavenly Father, his "Abba", his "Daddy".
EL is Jesus' "Good Father"
The old Gnostics believed Creation and the material world is basically flawed and prone to evil entrapping human souls. To me that was the great spiritual mistake of classical Gnosticism which I believe was their reaction to an existential/spiritual dilemma posed by the quite schizophrenic God of Israel as the Father of Jesus Christ. All Christians who have humanitarian conscience wince at the horrible commandments of the ancient God of Israel in the Old Testament. The ancient Gnostics, perhaps influenced by Buddhist missionaries coming into the Near East, reacted to this world's suffering by making an intellectual decision that the god responsible for "making" (as opposed to "creating") Creation did a botched job and everything is all fouled up because of this Big Idiot as Maker of Creation running things. Best life philosophy is to have as little to do with material worldly things as possible and, like evangelical Christians, aim for a better world beyond the grave. For Gnostics the better world was being reunited with Sophia, Wisdom, the rightful Help-mate of a hidden unknowable Higher God.
I too had that same Christian dilemma about YHWH vs. the good Father of Jesus. Until in 1998 I found EL Elyon, God Most High, as He was known and worshiped prior to the Jewish makeover of EL into EL's son, Yahweh to create the man-made artifice, YHWH. God in God's way to educate me, handed me the right book from a friend's hands who said, "Read this." Semitic Language Prof. John Gray's "Near Eastern Mythologies" where you find out how much has been lost in the Jewish deception for us Christians. EL Elyon was a great Father god, the very best male deity ever, and actually the very oldest male deity with altars to EL found in Syria going back 6000 years. EL ruled the Canaanite pantheon of gods and goddesses with wisdom and compassion, not force and fear which the lower war gods used. There are no Canaanite cuniform records of EL ever punishing human beings for sins yet it was to EL that Canaanites turned to for forgiveness of their sins. Here are appellations of EL that are unimaginable being applied to Yahweh: "EL the Compassionate One", "EL the Kindly One", "EL the Friendly One". Canaanite peoples loved EL and felt so comfortable with Him that they could make jokes about Him, something worthy of death if Jews joked about YHWH. EL Elyon is Jesus' true "Abba", his true "Daddy".
And by finding EL as the rightful Father Face of the Godhead, I went zooming past the old Gnostic mistaken belief this world is made a trap for the soul. No, Creation is where humanity evolves into God at "the End of Days". The Spirit cannot be manifest without the material world so Creation is absolutely necessary for the evolution of humanity into God to take place. Yes, Creation is not paradise, it runs on life and death opposition, on and off dualities that guarantee an unpleasant physical end for all of us and much hardship in between for many. The spiritual world is outside of this yet isn't. Can't have one without the other in Creation so Creation becomes actually our Problem Set for figuring out as we evolve through time. Once we do figure out how Creation works, we will have become God ourselves and there it is. The point of existence. The Bible doesn't tell you this but now you can know it too because I teach the Celestial Tauret.
The Elohim, the Holy Family, is led by EL Elyon
EL Elyon in the ancient Canaanite religion was the "Father of the Divine Assembly". That same "Divine Assembly" is mentioned in Psalm 82 as the "Congregation of the Mighty (Ones)" and it is the same as the Hebrew conception of the Elohim which again shows EL's leadership.
"'El is latipanu Žilu dupaŽidu, "the Compassionate God of Mercy." He is not easily moved to anger. The Kindly One, He blesses us and He forgives us when we do things we shouldn't. If we say we are sorry, this is usually sufficient, and He accepts this as atonement. He mourns for our pain and rejoices in our happiness.
`Anat says to ŽEl:
your decree, ŽEl, is wise;
your wisdom is forever;
A life of good fortune is your decree.
ŽAsherah says to ŽEl:
You are great, ŽEl,
indeed you are wise,
the gray hair of your beard indeed instructs you."
EL was "Father of the Divine Assembly" on the "Mount of Assembly". EL ruled this Heavenly Council but He wasn't a jealous God for He shared co-dominion with Asherah, and He wasn't a Storm God like Yahweh, Baal, or even Zeus, ready to send a lightening bolt down on anyone who disobeyed him. EL didn't punish humans for their foibles living in Creation with its natural laws dividing Life between order and chaos. And it was to EL to whom Jesus cried out from the cross. "My God EL, My God EL, why hast thou forsaken Me"? before He died because the Spirit of EL did leave Jesus at death and left most of traditional Christian communities when Paul brought back Yahweh's schizophrenic Love/Hate Spirit into the religion and made Christianity the religion most people know today with its horrible history of spiritual repression, love and hate combined. Jesus was named after Yahweh but he knew his Good Father EL and tried his best to fulfill the transformation of Yahweh into EL by initiating the Spirit of Christ as unconditional love and compassion for all in need of healing and comfort.
"He who overcomes, I will make him a pillar in the temple of My God, and he shall go out no more. And I will write on him the name of My God and the name of the city of My God, the New Jerusalem, which comes down out of heaven from My God."
--Rev 3:12
EL is the name of Jesus' God and Ariel is the name of spiritual Jerusalem.*
* See Isaiah chapter 29
EL vs. YHWH
God established the concept of Monotheism through the Hebrew epic because the ancient pagans didn't have the concept clear in their minds that there was a Great Spirit over and above our human representations of the Creator of all Things. The pagans got lost in the confusion of proliferation of gods and goddesses, the symbolic meaning of the Tower of Babel. For a fuller discussion of the ramifications of worshipping two different gods as God Most High, please go to the EL vs. YHWH chapter.
Saturnalia
"In Rome the feast of Sol Invictus [celebrated on December 25 as Dies Natalis Solis Invicti], always marked the end of a festival even more ancient but equally dedicated to the celebration of the self-renewal of nature: the Saturnalia. Based on the mythical era of the god Saturn, supposed to have been an age of happiness, peace, and brotherhood among all men, the Saturnalia in those days was a time in which the Romans abandoned themselves to touching demonstrations of friendship and affection. Even slaves had the right to sit at table with their masters and be served by them during the festival. It was a simple matter for Christianity--which was based fundamentally on universal brotherhood--to replace the heathen belief in the age of Saturn without impairing the admirable customs of the Saturnalia."
--Marcello Craveri "The Life of Jesus,"
Aquariana Christianity began with finding and restoring EL Elyon as God Most High
