The evolution of gods

[Heathen's Guide]

An added note... The last citation in the Wiki drives me nuts:


[4] However, the French scholar Daniel Dubuisson notes that relying on this etymology "tends to minimize or cancel out the role of history"

The idea that etymology would "cancel out" the role of history is ridiculous.  The etymology IS the history.  Find out where a word came from and what it originally meant and you're a long way toward understanding its place in history.  Without it, you are left to modern interpretations (re-interpretations) designed to make history more palatable to those in the present.

[Note that this is one of my things that I obsess over... the whole Augustinian influence on re-creating religions.  Please do not count anything I say as even a remote criticism of you.]

[elliebean]

Oh, you don't sound like an obnoxious idiot at all; I hope I don't, either. I'm far from an expert on etymology and linguistics, having never studied them formally, but they are a fascination of mine. I was just trying to be the responsible skeptic and check everything, at least in a cursory manner, before accepting it as fact. I would have looked into it more, but all my language books are buried away at the moment and the first few online sources I found on the subject seemed to corroborate each other. I suppose I could have simply asked you to support your assertions.  

[Sophus]

An added note... The last citation in the Wiki drives me nuts:


[4] However, the French scholar Daniel Dubuisson notes that relying on this etymology "tends to minimize or cancel out the role of history"

The idea that etymology would "cancel out" the role of history is ridiculous.  The etymology IS the history.  Find out where a word came from and what it originally meant and you're a long way toward understanding its place in history.  Without it, you are left to modern interpretations (re-interpretations) designed to make history more palatable to those in the present.

[Note that this is one of my things that I obsess over... the whole Augustinian influence on re-creating religions.  Please do not count anything I say as even a remote criticism of you.]

I've often wondered how much the etymology changes the meaning of the Biblical messages. Some of them I find hard to believe it really means what it says, even for the Bible. For example

"If any man come to me, and hate not his father, and mother, and wife, and children, and brethren, and sisters, yea, and his own life also, he cannot be my disciple."

Does the original context really translate into "hate"?