Talk:Iah

Move
This page was moved from Joh as that is the German spelling. —Nefertum17 08:31, 29 Jan 2005 (UTC)

DAB
There should be a separate article for YAH, since it is extremely unlikely that the Hebrew deity and the Egyptian one are connected. It is very wrong to redirect "Yah" to "Iah."


 * How and why is it "extremely unlikely" when all evidence points towards it's exactness of truth?  Nuwaubian Hotep 20:29, 22 July 2007 (UTC)


 * I would also like an explanation as to why it is "extremely unlikely that the Hebrew deity and the Egyptian one are connected." The redirect says, "This article is about the Egyptian god. For the form of the name of God used in the Hebrew Scriptures, see Yah. For the form of the name of God preferred in the Rastafari movement, see Jah." I think this is suitable, as it distinguishes the forms of the god, as opposed to the god himself. The implication is that they may be the same god, with homophonic names, but observed differently by different traditions. This seems to be the most accommodating of all possibilities. giggle 03:32, 10 July 2011 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned Gregory.george.lewis (talk • contribs)

Merge with Aah (god)
I have turned Aah (god) into a redirect here, as the two articles clearly cover the same subject. The only thing I copied was a link to the equivalent Polish Wikipedia article. Aah also contained a link to an article in the French Wikipedia, but that article was actually about Aha, a deity akin to Bes who has nothing to do with Iah. Aah also contained some, um, low-quality artwork that appeared to illustrate Thoth and Khonsu rather than Iah himself. The actual text was all sourced to websites whose reliability is questionable, and most of it was either redundant with the current text of Iah, or irrelevant.

There were two portions that might have proven useful if they could be verified. One was a claim that Aah was "the patron of the student or learner, as Aah is known to have spent much time studying with the god of wisdom, Thoth", which I have seen nowhere else and was, as I said, unreliably sourced. The other portion said that Thoth gambled with Aah (Iah) to win extra time in the year so that Nut could bear her children. This would be significant, since it would be the only myth I know of in which Iah actually appears. However, this version of the birth of Nut's children only appears (as far as I know) in Plutarch's De Iside et Osiride. That work may contain a good deal of Greco-Roman embellishment, so the portion about gambling between Thoth and the moon may not be authentically Egyptian. As can be seen here, in relating this story Plutarch refers to the moon as "she", suggesting that he was thinking of Luna or Selene, and not Aah/Iah at all. Until more reliable sources can be found I believe it's best to leave these portions out. A. Parrot (talk) 23:38, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

First appearance
User:Senouf added material saying that Iah first appeared in the Late Period. It was cited to The British Museum Book of Ancient Egypt, a reliable source. However, Richard H. Wilkinson, another reliable source, indicates that Iah was known as far back as the Old Kingdom, and cites specific spells in the Pyramid Texts. It's possible that the authors of the British Museum book made an error (even experts do that). It's also possible that not all Egyptologists regard the pre-Late Period material regarding Iah as unequivocally referring to a god, rather than simply an inanimate moon. The Pyramid Text spells that Wilkinson mentions state that Iah is the father and brother of the pharaoh; perhaps, since Iah isn't actually mentioned as doing anything, some Egyptologists don't regard those passages as sufficient indication of godhood? I'd appreciate more information from anyone who has it. A. Parrot (talk) 21:44, 9 September 2010 (UTC)

George Hart says that early references to Iah mean the physical moon the satellite of the earth (he doesn't say but I would guess this is the PT references) but that the 'zenith' of the worship of Iah came in the period after the Middle Kingdom when the Hykksos occupied Egypt possibly by identification with Akkadian moon god Sin. However early pharaohs and family of Dyn XVIII (i.e. those who threw out the Hyksoss) had names with Iah like Iahmose. Thut III had a queeen called Sit-Iah (daughter of Iah). Anyway he seems to think the god is a foreign import and the early stuff just means the moon itself not a god as later worshiped.Apepch7 (talk) 07:20, 10 September 2010 (UTC)

Also it would seem the idea of emergence in Late Period is wrong (?)Apepch7 (talk) 07:24, 10 September 2010 (UTC)

Why it is incredibly unlikely that Iah is related to Yahweh
1) Iah is a pretty obscure god. The Israelites adopting him don't make any sense, especially since there were two other much more popular moon gods.

2) Just because the Egyptian word for moon and the Hebrew word for moon share a cognate does not mean anytime the syllable "yah" comes up, it means "moon."

3) Yahweh not only is never associated with the moon based on our understanding of Him before becoming the monotheistic god of Israel, but I can't think of a single time in the Bible where Yahweh is shown to be the ruler of the moon except when He created it, and when the text talks about it, it refers to the moon as a "lesser light." Yahweh would not be seen as a lesser anything at the time Genesis was written. Yahweh has no association with the moon. Yahweh is a storm and war god.

4) Just because the shortened form of "Yahweh" is "Yah" doesn't mean they're the same. In fact, it proves they're different. If the Israelites couldn't even speak the name of Yahweh, why would shortening it to "Yah" make it any better if that's still the name of God?

5) What does the "Weh" in Yahweh mean? Where did it come from? If you're going to say that Yahweh is Yah, you have to be able to explain why he's not called Yah.

6) We're not even sure how Yahweh is pronounced. All we know is it's spelled like YHWH. Demonstrate why you know why it's pronounced "Yahweh" before you try to link him to another god.

7) Many scholars say Yahweh's consort was Asherah. She's equated to Anat in Egyptian mythology. Anat never had anything to do with Iah.

8) I have not been able to find a single scholarly example linking the two.

As you can see, there's no similarities between the two. The only thing that would lead one to believe that they have anything to do with each other is the syllable "Yah." Do not associate the two again without good scholarly evidence.

Dabblequeen (talk) 23:04, 4 July 2018 (UTC)