Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Ishinan" <ishinan AT comcast.net>]

 Dear Stephen,

Is your question somewhat related to Michael Harriz's following theory as 
expressed  in "A Story in Stone"? 


"...Early during the Greek domination of the Middle East, Helios was 
identified with Baal-Hadad as both were already recognized sun gods. Later, 
before the end of Hellenistic era (330-146 B.C.), Zeus was supplanted by 
Jupiter. And, since both Jupiter and Baal personified a number of similar 
forces and attributes (rain, thunder, lightning, fertility, fecundity, etc..) 
they were equated, fused and merged under the appellation of Jupiter 
Heliopolitanus, meaning: the sun father god."

http://www.goldenageproject.org.uk/322jupiter.html


If so, then might I suggest, that before you delve into any possible 
linguistic links,  you read a counter point raised earlier by Joseph Azize: 
The Phoenician solar theology: An investigation into the Phoenician opinion 
(chapter 7  ...p. 130).  It is about the sun goddess of Ugarit (shpsh /shmsh, 
the Semitic Sun deity who was originally a female).

Best regards 

Ishinan Ishibashi


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 Earlier, Stephen wrote :
  
I happened to come across this thread while I was  researching a related 
topic, and I was just wondering what people here  thought of the possibility 
that El could have come into Gk as Helios  or de-personified as helios, as 
all these words referred to the  sun, light, and day', considering especially 
the following  factors: 

(1) The presence of unaspirated variants of Helios,  aelios and eelios, in 
Doric, Aolic, Arcadian and Epic Greek 

(3) The practice of referring to El as "The" God using Heb. "Ha," which could 
easily have led to Ha-el, and the subsequent loss of one of the vowels 

(4) ) The ability of this etymology to explain the  presence of an a-grade 
variant of Helios, Halios 

(5) The  virtually universal tendency to strengthen words beginning with 
vowels  by aspirating them, especially in the formation of vocatives 

(6) The  presence of a number of monosyllabic Greek articles beginning with  
"*h", which could have led to *Hel or *Hal- through vowel loss and/or  
confusion with Heb. Ha-El 

(7) The evidence that a number of groups  (including the Phoenecians, The 
Philistines and the so-called   Sea People) were traveling between the Levant 
and the Greek islands  pre- and proto-historically, as well as historically. 

Comments and criticisms would be appreciated. Thanks in  advance. 

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