Board Thread:Series general discussion/@comment-28601337-20170518051547/@comment-18014300-20170518182845

I have long believed that in Assassin's Creed, Yahweh aka Jehovah aka El was an Isu. I personally think that he was likely one of the last surviving Isu and that was how he managed to influence humanity so profoundly.

His roots can be traced to Canaanite polytheism, where El (lit. "God") was the name of the head of the Canaanite pantheon. Very interesting detail I just discovered recently and was talking over with friends; the consort of Yahweh was originally Asherah apparently. Asherah, the Canaanite goddess of fertility, is also known as Ishtar in Akkadian, Inanna in Sumerian, Aphrodite in Greek (though the Hellenized version of the name Asherah is Astarte), and Venus in Roman. The Greco-Roman pantheon shares common Indo-European roots with the Mesopotamian ones. In other words, we can say that Aphrodite was the consort of Yahweh o_o... Note that Asherah is mentioned contemptuously several times in the Bible, where she is known as a false goddess to be destroyed (or whose idols should be destroyed). Not a very amicable divorce lol.

What's more is that there are actually some connections between Aphrodite and Satan. See, both Venus and Lucifer are known to symbolize the Morning Star, which is actually the planet Venus. As it turns out, in Canaanite mythology, there was a god named Attar who rebelled against the storm god Ba'al (lit. "the Lord") and after his failure was banished to rule the underworld instead. While Ba'al was originally a god distinct from El, the Bible merged the title with Yahweh. Attar is the male counterpart of Ishtar (Venus), a development that comes from the Arabian pantheon which tended to switch around genders. As a result, we have an interesting scenario where Venus can not only be linked to Yahweh as his wife, but also the nemesis who rebelled against him.

However, as I told my friends, I won't really ever feel comfortable identifying Aphrodite with Satan, and the most I would wing with is that Lucifer was her twin brother. It must be noted though—and I am really confused by this—that the Devil was not originally identified as Lucifer, Lucifer ("light-bringer", Morning Star) being used as a title to describe, the Babylonian king responsible for the of the Judeans instead. The motif of the Morning Star was used disparagingly because it fails to shine as brightly as the Sun and "falls" or disappears. The link between Lucifer and the Devil was only made by Christians much later, believing it to be analogous to their tales of the Devil's origin, and even possibly because of a misinterpretation of that text, which calls the Babylonian king Lucifer because the Babylonian king was thought to be descended from Ishtar (Venus). Furthermore, the character of Satan as the nemesis of God, I believe, also didn't exist in the original Hebrew Bible. Satan, meaning "accuser", seems to have initially been a specific angel who was assigned the role of tempting humanity to sin under orders by God, to test them. As I understand, Judaism tends not to have an explicit view of the Devil or believe he exists at all.

In any case, mainstream Christianity has linked Lucifer to the Devil nonetheless, and despite the possibility the analogy to the Devil is a total misinterpretation, there is striking resemblance to the story of Attar, the male Ishtar, rebelling against Ba'al and failing and having to descend to the underworld.

So I thought I might note the interesting possible link between Aphrodite, the Devil, and Yahweh. I favor the idea that Yahweh was one of the last surviving Isu, and that he amassed power and influence over humanity at some point, but I know how controversial that would be to Jews, Christians, and Muslims. Aphrodite does seem to have survived well into the days of Myceanean Greece though, judging by the story of Kyros of Zarax which is incorrectly dated to the 6th century BCE.