The book The DaVinci Code makes a lot of historically faulty claims, most of which I can dismiss pretty easily based on my knowledge of the subjects brought up. However, this one I have no idea one way or the other:
So, three points:
[ul]
[li]Jewish tradition involved ritualistic sex in the Temple.[/li][li]Jews believed that the female equal of God existed in the Temple with Him.[/li][li]YHWH/Jehovah is a union of masculine and femine names.[/li][/ul]
True or false? If false, where did Brown get these ideas? From what I’ve read of the Old Testament/Hebrew Bible, the writers/God where constantly decrying/punishing Israelites for their sexual sins, which makes it seem unlikely that priestess key opening occurred.
The scriptural evidence is nil. There is absolutely no hints of any of those claims found in the Hebrew Scriptures.
And so, the only other source would be extra-biblical accounts. And let’s see, from my studies, the ancient documents that would support the theory in question is… none.
Remember, the book in question is fiction. Pure fiction. As history, it’s a lie.
I’m not Jewish, but I studied theology as a sideline. My major background is in the sciences and medicine, but I took enough philosophy/theology courses to get a degree ‘almost for free’ (i.e. with a few additional courses.) It’s possible that people with more deliberate backgrounds in theology will correct me.
In the 80’s and 90’s, my professors in Judaic subjects were oddly and strikingly emphatic that the derivation of “Eve” from Havah, Heb, etc. (meaning “breath”, IIRC) was a “folk etymology” that should not be credited. Maimonides dismissed this etymology in “The Guide of the Perplexed” (though perhaps that was a disproportionate emphasis by the translator, Shlomo Pines, or the influential commentator Levi Strauss)
Anyone trained in the esoteric style of Judaic texual interpretation would have sensed an unspoken significance in the unexpected fervor of their denials. I’ve long wondered what was so ‘wrong’ with tracing the name ‘Eve’ to words with such apparently innocent meanings (“breath”, or “to breathe”).
Your post makes me wonder if that might not have been a longstanding controversy in Judaism. That theory (very) vaguely rings a bell, but if I read it, I must’ve dismissed it or forgotten the details
I know this is a factually weak reply, and I apologize for that, but I thought I’d share it and direct yuou to this etymology. Did the book mention it or attribute any significance to it?
(I have a copy of The Davinci Code, but it’s far down my list, where it’s likely to be perpetually shoved aside by new additions before I get to it. I’d be interested in the opinions of others on this book, and whether it would be a worthy read for someone with a background – akin, perhaps, to ‘The Name of the Rose’ etc.)
Sacred sex and ritual prostitution were part of Canaanite worship, and the practice was common in the Middle East (e.g., the temple prostitute sent out to tame Enkidu in the Epic of Gilgamesh) This is why there are so many prohibitions like Deuteronomy 23:17-18 in the Bible. According to Karen Armstrong’s excellent book A History of God, the two forty-foot free-standing pillars within the Temple at Jerusalem (p. 25) are part of the fertility cult of Asherah. This sort of polytheist impurity was later blamed for the destruction of the kingdom and the Babylonian captivity. The Bible was written by people trying to stamp out the whole orgiastic fertility goddess thing, and even deny it ever happened.
If The Da Vinci Code a this secret cult of the Canaanite fertility goddess Anat still exists, that’s jes’ stupid.
Recommended reading: everything both Karen Armstrong and Elaine Pagels have ever written; King Jesus by Robert Graves.
Darned good hypothesis and very credible, too. However, Brown makes this statement at the beginning of the book:
Since the Temple sexual rituals were defintely definted as secret, it would fall under his “accurate” claim. I’d want to know what “facts” he based his statement on.
Unfortunately, I was 3/4 of the way through the book when that statement came out of left field and left me saying “what??” I had heard many of the other hypotheses before reading this book (some of which have been discredited by Cecil), so I could live with the glaring silliness of some of them. But this one stopped me in my tracks and brough me here for any hint of where the idea came from.
Plus it was mentioned as an aside, not really something intricate to the plot.
Supposedly, there’s supposed to be a companion to the book delving into which factiods in the book have any factual basis behind them.
The book is more interested in the etymology of Jehovah than of the word Eve, in order to show that, despite Christianity’s attempts to destroy the “sacred femine”, the Christian interpretation of YHVH, Jehovah, shows derivation from Eve, the original “female godess”.
The claim made in the book that Shekhina is G-d’s female equal is incorrect.
First of all, under Judaism, G-d is not male. In fact, one of the basis tenents of Judaism as set forth by Maimonedes is that G-d has no body, and therefore no genitalia, which are the determining factors of gender. The only reason I can think of for this misconception is that verbs describing G-d’s actions in the Torah are all in the masculine form, but then, masculine in Hebrew is also used for neutral. “He said” is also “it said.” Therefore, there’s no reason to conclude that G-d is male. G-d has no gender.
There is a concept of the Shekhina in Judaism, but it has nothing to do with G-d’s equal, or with any power outside G-d. The Shekhina is, roughly translated, G-d’s presence or a concentration thereof. For instance, the Shekhina was said to rest in the holiest part of the temple.
I don’t know the source of this claim, but it is incorrect.
That said, I enjoyed the DaVinci code and read it twice. I just don’t think it’s a particularly accurate depiction of religion, though it may have been decently researched. I just read it because it’s fun toread.
It is hard, almost impossible, to prove a negative. But the OP seems very unlikely – for Jewish religious practices. The Mishnah [Berakhot 8.7] specifically forbids sex before a sacrafice in the Temple.
However, in the circa 400 years that Solomon’s temple existed Israel changed many, many times. At one point, the Kings of Isreal were “ethnically” Jewish but ploytheistic and the temple was given over to use by pagans – some of whom had male temple prostitutes (this was a common Caaninite Practice) Want a cite? Check your Bible (2 Kgs. 23:4, 6-7, 11-12): Specifically During the reformation of King Josiah:
**“The king ordered Hilkiah the high priest, the priests next in rank and the doorkeepers to remove from the temple of Yahweh all the articles made for Baal and Asherah and all the starry hosts. He burned them outside Jerusalem in the fields of the Kidron Valley and took the ashes to Bethel. He took the Asherah pole from the temple of Yahweh to the Kidron Valley outside Jerusalem and burned it there. He ground it to powder and scattered the dust over the graves of the common people. He also tore down the quarters of the male shrine prostitutes, which were in the temple of Yahweh and where women did weaving for Asherah. He removed from the entrance to the temple of Yahweh the horses that the kings of Judah had dedicated to the sun. They were in the court near the room of an official named Nathan-Melech. Josiah then burned the chariots dedicated to the sun. He pulled down the altars the kings of Judah had erected on the roof near the upper room of Ahaz, and the altars Manasseh had built in the two courts of the temple of Yahweh. He removed them from there, smashed them to pieces and threw the rubble into the Kidron Valley.” **(2 Kgs. 23:4, 6-7, 11-12).
It seems Brown could be referring obliquly to this relatively breif period – but it does not jibe well with his fuller explanation – which was of a Jewish ritual …
From my neophyte Hebrew knowledge. Please correct me, because I am of dubious authority. YHWH is spelled in Hebrew (yood hay vav hay) with totally different letters than Chava (chet bet hay). They don’t even sound the same: a soft h versus a kh/ch guttural sound. I was under the impression that etymology doesn’t work like that. I was also told that if one is too look for meaning, YHWH has the yood, indicated past and future tense in biblical Hebrew (it is a weird language) and the hay vav hay, which roughly means present. So briefly, it has the elements of the past, future, and present.
Almost all words in Hebrew have a three letter “root”. YHWH indeed comes from the “root” HWH meaning “being” or “existing/present”. Eve comes from HAVA - spelled KhWH - which is the root meaning “life” (She is called the “mother of all living things” - Em Kol Khay - in Hebrew).
OTOH - the letters Kh and H are considered “close” to each other and may sometimes be interchangeable - so that HWH - “being” and KhWH - “life” - may well be related. This relationship also makes some logical sense. and YH (or the god Ya) + KhWH ( Eve) could well have ended up being YHWH
OT third H (Help, I’m running out of fingers!) I see no reason to believe in connection between YHWH - the GOD and KhWH - a (second hand yet!) creation of said god. Also, while the form YH exists in later texts as a name for god (Psalms, eg), it does not (IIRC) appear in the Pentatuch.
So, my WAG is that the etymology YH + KhWH = YHWH is a “reverse engineering” attempt by later sources, based on similarity of sound (see the latest Staff Report for more on this kind of thing!) rather than on actual primitive mythology.
King Solomon did though introduce Babylonian temple practices to Israel, and actually allowed temples in the name of other gods to be built. Whereas today it is regarded as enlightened tolerance to other religions, at the time it caused a schism throughout all of Israel.
King Solomon did though introduce Babylonian temple practices to Israel, and actually allowed temples in the name of other gods to be built. Whereas today it is regarded as enlightened tolerance to other religions, at the time it caused a schism throughout all of Israel. (1 Kings chapter 11)
However, Brown makes this statement at the beginning of the book: