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Is the Egyptian word NTR(god) from Nut/Neith + Ra?

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Poll Question: What is the origin of the Egyptian term for god, NTR?
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  Quote rakovsky Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Topic: Is the Egyptian word NTR(god) from Nut/Neith + Ra?
    Posted: 07-Aug-2016 at 14:55
Scholars find the meanings and etymology of the Egyptian word for "God" a mystery. The word is NTR, pronounced Neter.

Some scholars propose that it means "Nature", "element", or "principle".

A review of The Temple in Man by R.A. Schwaller de Lubicz lays out this theory:

Schwaller de Lubicz explains in Le Temple de l'Homme (Caracteres, 1957) that in the ancient temple civilization of Egypt, numbers, our most ancient form of symbol, did not simply designate quantities but instead were considered to be concrete definitions of energetic formative principles of nature. The Egyptians called these energetic principles Neters, a word which is conventionally rendered as "gods." To conform with the true meaning of the symbol in ancient Egypt, we ought to use the Egyptian term Medu-Neteru, the Greek translation of which, "heiroglyphs," distorts the Egyptian meaning. Medu-Neteru are the Neters, or the principles conveyed by a sign.
...
"'Divine" man (without this part of the brain ) represents the Principle or Neter, capable of living and acting, but only as the executant of an impulse that he receives; hence, he plays the role of an intermediary between the abstract impulse, outside of Nature, and its execution in Nature, without actual choice. In this regard, this entity has a primitive, and "prenatural" character

...each of these individual members of the vegetable kingdom belongs to a genus, and this genus to a family; and these families belong to an original "lineage." At the head of this lineage is a Neter, a "Principle" synthesizing all the characteristics of this lineage: its number, its rhythm, its classification in the general harmony. Let us further elucidate, by means of a geometrical image, the role of the Neter as head or Principle of a lineage.

http://www.fatuma.net/text/R.A.SchwallerdeLubicz-TheTempleinMan-SacredArchitectureandthePerfectMan.pdf

Stephen S. Mahler writes in Land of Osiris about NTR and this theory that NTR means element or nature:
First translated by early Egyptologists after Champollion as God or Goddess, this meaning ["god"] has since been challenged. R A Schwaller de Lubicz was one of the first to question this translation in the early 1950's, choosing rather to define Neter as principle" and/or "attribute", as a divine aspect of the whole, not in the sense we use the word Deity. The [ Latins] derived their word Nature from Neter, therefore equating the Divine with the natural as the Khemitians taught them. The ancient Khemitians knew every principle or attribute of Nature was also divine, of God - all interconnected and interrelated to the whole, the source.

The book Religion and the Order of Nature by Seyyed Hossein Nasr (Professor of Islamic Studies at George Washington University) says:
...there are basic principles concerning the order of nature that continue through these transformations, such as the identification of cosmic elements with real divinities possessing a personal existence. Most important of these principles for the understanding of the order of nature is the Neter , which has received many interpretations, some even equating it with the Hebrew Wl. The Neter is a principle conveyed by a sign, the hieroglyph being itself called Medu-Neteru. It is the Idea of which a material object is the crystallization.
...
The order of nature is the reflection of the order that belongs to the realm of the principles or Neteru, which man also carries within his being as a consequence of his central position in the cosmic order. 'Every natural type is a revelation of one of the natures and abstract functions that rule the world, a verb of the divine language —that is, the entities or fully realized Principles (Neteru).
A weakness in this theory is that these particular scholars are not major Egyptologists. Some propose that the Latin word for Nature, Natura, comes from Egyptian NTR. But others disagree and say that there is no direct connection, and that Natura only comes from Natalis, the latin word for birth.

What do you think?


Next I will lay out my theory that NTR comes from Nut/Neith + Ra.
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  Quote rakovsky Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 07-Aug-2016 at 15:40
Let me explain my theory here. First, consider that in other ancient civilizations, the word for god at that time bore a phonetic resemblance, because T is an unvoiced D. So the Sumerians, proto-Turkics, Chinese, and Indo-Europeans called God Dingir, Tengri, Tien, and Dyeus. These word not only meant god, but they also meant heavens/sky. And with the exception of Tien in Chinese, they also meant day, brightness, or shining. So we might consider whether the word in Egyptian, NTR, had a related meaning.

In each of those other societies, we see that this word for God not only referred the word deity as such, but also referred to a particular supreme deity, with the exception perhaps of Tengri, which perhaps only referred to a supreme deity.

Next, looking at the names of Egyptian gods who begin with N, we find that there are such gods:
NuNeT, the primordial waters that are in the heavens; Nut, the heavens/sky; Neith, a warrior/weaver goddess who is also equated with the heavens.
Each of these deities is equated with the celestial waters and the heavens.

Next, we look for an R or for the meaning of brightness, day, and shining, and we come across Ra(Sun) and Horus (Falcon). They are gods closely equated or associated with each other, as Ra/sun on the horizon is called Horus. Horus is the god of light and Ra is the god of day.

Consider also that Tien is a supreme ruler of the heavens. The Chinese and Egyptians imagined that the worlds in the heavens and on earth paralleled each other, with a supreme ruler on each. In Egyptian mythology, Neith and Hathor are the queens or are associated with the Egyptian queens. Hathor means "mansion of Horus" and she was also equated with Neith and Nut as the celestial waters and heavens. Neith, Hathor, and Nut were all depicted as a celestial cow in this concept. For their part, the male pharaohs were the sons of Ra and embodiments of Horus, respectively.

Let's consider another aspect of these chief deities- their status as a Creator. Dingir referred to An who was the progenitor of the gods, while Dyeus was Dyeus Pater, the sky father of the gods. Indeed, being a creator of the gods would be a character of a supreme deity, which is what we are looking for.

For example, one theory on the etymology of Dingir - is that it means Creator from the verb, Dinge, to create, as Sayce proposed in the 19th century.
SEE:       https://books.google.com/books?id=Rp4qAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA143&lpg=PA143&dq=%22dingir%22+sumer+OR+sumerian+etymology&source=bl&ots=Lo_Aphd3ca&sig=MESDlZsZ2pyF3dFP2V5QbI9WMAk&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjurvLcjavOAhVEgx4KHTm6AdwQ6AEIfjAQ#v=onepage&q=%22dingir%22%20sumer%20OR%20sumerian%20etymology&f=false

Wikipedia notes Neith's status as a Creator/Creatrix:
It is at these changing points that Neith reigns as a form of sky goddess, where the sun rises and sets daily, or at its ‘first appearance’ to the sky above and below. It is at these points, beyond the sky that is seen, that her true power as deity who creates life is manifested.

As the goddess of creation and weaving, she was said to reweave the world on her loom daily. An interior wall of the temple at Esna records an account of creation in which Neith brings forth from the primeval waters of the Nun the first land. All that she conceived in her heart comes into being including the thirty gods. Having no known husband she has been described as "Virgin Mother Goddess":

  • Unique Goddess, mysterious and great who came to be in the beginning and caused everything to come to be . . . the divine mother of Ra, who shines on the horizon...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neith

The Crystal Links site mentions also how Nut is a Creatrix:

In the Book of the Dead, Nut was seen as a mother-figure to the sun god Ra, who at sunrise was known as Khepera and took the form of a scarab beetle (at noon he was Ra at his full strength, and at sunset he was known as Tem (Temu, Atem) who was old and weakening):
  • Homage to thee, O thou who hast come as Khepera, Khepera the creator of the gods, Thou art seated on thy throne, thou risest up in the sky, illumining thy mother [Nut], thou art seated on thy throne as the king of the gods. [Thy] mother Nut stretcheth out her hands, and performeth an act of homage to thee....

http://www.crystalinks.com/nut.html

Meanwhile, Ra was also seen as a creator of everything, as these essays note:

The ancient Egyptians revered Ra as the god who created everything.

http://www.ancient-egypt-online.com/egyptian-god-ra.html



Ra created himself from the primordial chaos. ... Humans were created from Ra’s tears.

http://www.ancient-egypt-online.com/egyptian-god-ra.html


Next, let's consider whether the Egyptians might have combined Nut and Ra into a concept of deity.
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  Quote rakovsky Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 07-Aug-2016 at 16:51
One of the obstacles to equating NT + Ra with NTR is that it combines deities, and not only that, but male and female ones. Is this a possibility?

Consider that:
1. Hathor is equated with Nut and Neith as the celestial sky goddess. But "Hathor" simply means "House of Horus". The combining of the heavens with Horus is a key concept in Hathor, and therefore de facto in Nut. Consider also that a key Egyptian myth is also the combination of Nu and Ra - each day Nut, the heavens, swallows Ra and gives him rebirth each day. During that time, Ra travels inside Ra, making her de facto his house.

2. Egyptians had a practice of combining gods. So Amen + Ra = Amen Ra. Ra + Horus = Ra-Horakhty.

3. Egyptians could think in terms of androgynous gods that were both male and female. So Neith was sometimes written in hieroglyphics as a producing phallus, referring to her status as a creator. See: http://www.touregypt.net/featurestories/nit.htm#ixzz4FaInumGF

4. The Hindu Shatkona is a divine symbol of the combination of the male and female deities that creates life. One triangle is the male god Shiva or else the Cosmic Man Purusha and the other triangle is Shakti, the mother goddess. One theory is that the Ankh is similar - a symbol of life representing both female and male parts, with the O being a womb and the t being a phallus or other male symbol.

5. The Sumerians and Babylonians called the gods the "Anunaki". They were the offspring of the gods "An"/"Anu" and "Ki".

Kerry Barger writes in The True Story of Noah,
The Sumerian term for universe is An-Ki, which translates as "heaven-earth". Air, wind, sotrms, and the breath of the gods was called Lil and existed between the earth and the heavens. ... The primeval sea beyond the heavens, the Abzu (abyss or cosmic waters) gave birth to all life, including the Anunnaki (which literally translates as the offspring of Heaven and Earth).


The Encyclopedic Dictionary of Religion, Vol. 1 defines Anunnaki this way:
"Term which possibly means An's (and Ki's) offspring, the princely ones, used in especially Sumerian texts as a general word for the gods, in particular the early gods, who were born first and were not differentiated with individual names. The Skygod An is described as the king of the Anunnaki."

This last part reminds me of the importance of kingship for the quintessential deity, as the Dingir sign specifically referred to An. It also reminds us of how Ra was seen as the king of the gods in Egypt.

In Egypt, the gods were the offspring of Nut and Ra and were called the Neteru. Just as the offspring of An and Ki were the Anunaki, could it be that the offspring of the combination of Nut and Ra are called Neteru for a similar phonetic reason?

What do you think about my theory that NTR = Nut + Ra?
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  Quote medenaywe Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 08-Aug-2016 at 06:54
What do you think about:
Maternal=Sanctification-organisational=structural=constitutional-civilization dream=romance= fantasy-imagination-invention is sprung =issued=edited-grown-moved by ntr.
Maternal=Sanctification-organisational =structural =constitutional-civilization dream=romance=fantasy springs=issues=edits-grows-moves ntr.


Edited by medenaywe - 08-Aug-2016 at 23:42
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  Quote rakovsky Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 08-Aug-2016 at 18:16
Hello, Medenaywe.

I think you are using humor, suggesting that I am relying on too weak a connection between words.

The meaning of NTR in its origins is very interesting to me because Egyptian civilization and religion is one of the oldest, if not the oldest, we have remaining in detailed literature, like the pyramid texts. They were written on the walls of the pyramids over 4000 years ago.

I think it's neat.




Edited by rakovsky - 08-Aug-2016 at 18:17
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  Quote rakovsky Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 08-Aug-2016 at 18:18
Looks like they let you vote more than once here on the same poll. Oh well.
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  Quote red clay Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 08-Aug-2016 at 18:42
Originally posted by rakovsky

Looks like they let you vote more than once here on the same poll. Oh well.




No, you cannot vote more than once. However, you don't have to post in order to vote.
So, 3 votes only 2 posters.
"Arguing with someone who hates you or your ideas, is like playing chess with a pigeon. No matter what move you make, your opponent will walk all over the board and scramble the pieces".
Unknown.
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  Quote red clay Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 08-Aug-2016 at 18:50
Were you aware that the Hopi had protectors they called the Annunaki. In their language Annu means Ant and Naki means friend, Ant Friends.
"Arguing with someone who hates you or your ideas, is like playing chess with a pigeon. No matter what move you make, your opponent will walk all over the board and scramble the pieces".
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  Quote medenaywe Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 08-Aug-2016 at 23:44
Egyptians spoke like that Rakovsky in 196 B.C.They spoke with language where voices&syllables were words!

Edited by medenaywe - 08-Aug-2016 at 23:44
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  Quote rakovsky Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 09-Aug-2016 at 00:44
Originally posted by red clay

Originally posted by rakovsky

Looks like they let you vote more than once here on the same poll. Oh well.




No, you cannot vote more than once. However, you don't have to post in order to vote.
So, 3 votes only 2 posters.

Please check the poll results again, Red Clay.


Edited by rakovsky - 09-Aug-2016 at 00:45
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  Quote rakovsky Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 09-Aug-2016 at 00:55
Originally posted by red clay

In their language Annu means Ant and Naki means friend, Ant Friends.


Red Clay,

That sounds neat, but would you be able to confirm that with a scholarly source?

I looked up person and people in a Hopi dictionary, and all I found was that person is "himösino"
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  Quote rakovsky Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 09-Aug-2016 at 00:57
Originally posted by medenaywe

Egyptians spoke like that Rakovsky in 196 B.C.They spoke with language where voices&syllables were words!


So what were they doing in the centuries leading up to 196 BC to make language?

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  Quote medenaywe Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 09-Aug-2016 at 01:05
Read Origins of Language  better!Be persistent and more it comes it is better.How word=sentence sounds is the rule:
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  Quote red clay Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 09-Aug-2016 at 09:34
Originally posted by rakovsky


Originally posted by red clay

In their language Annu means Ant and Naki means friend, Ant Friends.
Red Clay,That sounds neat, but would you be able to confirm that with a scholarly source?I looked up person and people in a Hopi dictionary, and all I found was that person is "<strong =" phr">himösino"



I probably could, if I had time. However I thought that was a common historical fact.
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  Quote red clay Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 09-Aug-2016 at 12:00
On the subject of the poll, it's never happened before. I'm looking for a glitch now.
Our software is old and creaky, glitches are not unexpected.
"Arguing with someone who hates you or your ideas, is like playing chess with a pigeon. No matter what move you make, your opponent will walk all over the board and scramble the pieces".
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  Quote red clay Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 09-Aug-2016 at 12:05
The Hopi legends state that the "ant people" came and took them underground to survive some global disaster.

If you need further info, google it. This isn't new or unknown folklore.
"Arguing with someone who hates you or your ideas, is like playing chess with a pigeon. No matter what move you make, your opponent will walk all over the board and scramble the pieces".
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  Quote rakovsky Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 09-Aug-2016 at 14:34
Originally posted by red clay

The Hopi legends state that the "ant people" came and took them underground to survive some global disaster.

If you need further info, google it. This isn't new or unknown folklore.

Red Clay,

I googled it and found that Hopi legends talk about the Ant People helping them. What I didn't find though is a claim in an academic scholarly authoritative source (eg. peer reviewed journal, dictionary, or for that matter Hopi website) saying that Ant People = "Annunaki" in Hopi.

I did find New Age-type website claiming that, and even one website claiming that the Hopi word was Anasazi (a word that actually means enemies' ancestors).
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  Quote Centrix Vigilis Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 09-Aug-2016 at 16:21
http://www.hopi-nsn.gov/

Under 'Contact'.. direct your research thru the Office of the Chairman and or Director of Education for additional information..sources..links that verify this well known traditional cultural identification,
"Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence"

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Pilger's law: 'If it's been officially denied, then it's probably true'

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  Quote Arthur-Robin Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 09-Aug-2016 at 16:45
I don't think neter can be Nut + Ra. Not saying more on here but you [Rakovsly] can discuss it in p.m. or anywhere else if wish.
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  Quote rakovsky Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 09-Aug-2016 at 19:59
Originally posted by Arthur-Robin

I don't think neter can be Nut + Ra. Not saying more on here but you [Rakovsly] can discuss it in p.m. or anywhere else if wish.

Arthur,

Don't feel bad about posting here or discussing with opposite POVs. I can see several different theories. Some I have come across among Egyptologists:
NTR = birthing, giving life. (Like Natalis in Latin, or Nurture in English)
NTR = Nature, element, principle (Like Natura in Latin)
NTR = purifying (Like Natron in Latin and in Egyptian)
NTR = something high up (like the "God most High" in the Old Testament)

That NTR is related to the goddesses Nut("sky/heavens" that has the heavenly waters)/Nunet(heavenly "waters")/Neith(who is the unseen heavens and the heavenly waters) is my own theory. For example, the gods are often equated with the stars in Egyptian myths. And the stars themselves are celestial and heavenly. When the blessed dead die, they go to heaven and become "neteru" (gods, plural of NTRU). So this means they are heavenly too in a sense. Copts dropped the R in NTR and called it Noute, which reminds me of Nut (heavens, pronounced Newt). It's as if the R was not essential and they associated NTR most with Nut, the heavens.

The best avenue for more exploration of the subject I see would be to see what words in the related Chadic/Cush-ite, and Berber languages have NTR, mean "God", or mean any of those five things and also have NT in them or mean "god".


Edited by rakovsky - 09-Aug-2016 at 20:00
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