Yeah mostly I've just been trying to figure out why my anscestors worshipped an obvious levantine transplant in Baldor for a long time as well as why their chief God was different in title from the rest of the aryans.
Think I figured it out and wanted to share it.
There is also a case to be made that common psychological archetypes lead to parallel invention of religious figures.
Lot of talk and storytelling happened, and cultural cross pollination. Doesn't take much for a guy coming back from the middle east, or a guy coming back from spain, ho talked to someone from the middle east, to then relay a story he heard. That story gets retold in the north, generationally, because thats one of the activities that was center to many northern european cultures, and the later generations morph it into a story about a god.
If it fits a lesson to be learned, or fits existing cultural mythos, then it doesn't necessarily have to be a 'transplanted' idea or god, it can merely be the initiator of the potential that already existed. Case in point, death, birth, and renewal. Super common theme in northern european culture.
All very valid points.
What confused me was that in old English baldeor means lord. The first time I noted this, I was a tad shocked, since ba'al also means lord and the words are so similar. Had the similarity existed with the slavs, italics or even the indo-aryans this would not have surprised me. But Semitic and Aryan languages split off a very very long time before the various Aryan branches did. So in this particular instance I would suggest the name similarities were the result of some type of transplant rather than a random germanic traveling to the Levant and telling caananite mythology to his kids upon return.
Fascinating stuff. In my mind it proves the caananites made it as far as Scandinavia.
So in this particular instance I would suggest the name similarities were the result of some type of transplant rather than a random germanic traveling to the Levant and telling caananite mythology to his kids upon return.
You underestimate how much travelling and trade people did. The world was a very isolated place. People talked every opportunity they could.
Its estimated half of all untranslated texts were gossip and jokes.
It makes a lot of sense in the context: You live in a dangerous world where there is effectively no true law enforcement. If you're engaged in travelling, trade, commerce, or exploring, or even just going any sort of distance for work (woodcutting, fishing, hunting, trapping, mining)--if you're going any distance at all, the people 30-50 miles way from you could be completely foreign, if not in their ancestry, then in their attitudes and local dialect. Telling a joke goes a long way to diffusing tension and potential distrust of strangers. It would be an absolute survival advantage.
In my mind it proves the caananites made it as far as Scandinavia.
or vice-versa, but basically we agree.
Theres also credible accounts of middle easterners traveling as far as scotland and ireland, though I don't have links to that at the moment.
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