In existographies, Constantine Grethenbach (c.1852-c.1915) was an American secular Jewish religio-mythology scholar noted for []
Overview
In 1902, Grethenbach, in his Secular View of the Bible: From Studies of the Hebrew; with the Evidences as to Jesus, gave one of the first cogent attempts to deconstruct the Hebrew Bible, backwards, via translation decoding, into: its original Egyptian mythology, Greek mythology, and Chaldaic literature roots, e.g. commentary on the Eve [Latin] = cHavah [Hebrew] meaning; the following (pgs. 42-43) is a representative quote: [1]
“Sar-ai or Sar-ah takes name from A-Sar or Osiris, who was the mutilated or "eunuch" (Hebrew Sar-is); and from Seruah the wife of As-Shur, the barren Zur or ‘rock’. She was of course barren, but, after she has ceased to be capable of offspring, three Aenosh-im (Egyptian ‘wolves’) promised her she would have a child, and so Jehoah visited her (Genesis 21: 1). In the Egyptian story Typhon or Seth charges that Har or Horus is illegitimate, as Plutarch tells us; and so Vulcan was Juno's child without the aid of her husband, and lightning begat Apis from a heifer, and cHannah had Shemu-El after she visited Aal-i the priest, and cHavah after her visit from Nachash in Eden, so that Sarai asks if she shall have Eden-ah (translation: ‘pleasure ‘) at her time of life.”
Here, as we see, with his ‘as Plutarch tells us’, is rather free-wheeling in his translation etymologies, but, nevertheless, in the neighborhood.
In 1903, Grethenbach, in his “Hammurabi and Abraham”, a one-page letter sent to Open Court, vents his condensed opinions on etymologies of Abraham [Hamu-Rabi], Noah [prophet], Jacob [Bacchus], and Moses [the Name]. The letter in full is as follows: [2]
“Why should Ramu-Rabi be confused with the Biblical Amraphel? Each name has four consonants, yet only two in common. It seems to me that it would be easier to identify Ramu-Rabi with Abraham, since their four consonants are the same. Ibra-Hamu is a paranomasism that is not difficult.
Indeed, Khamor-Abi is Arabic for ‘Moon-father’, and Abraham's father is said to have come out of Hur or Ur, which was the best known name of the Moon or Moon-god in Babylonia: as in Egypt the Moon-god Tachut or Decade was like Khamor-Abi, the lawgiver, and Bath-Tachuti appears with Jehoah at Sinai and proclaims him, for she is Azab-ea or Sibyl, not ‘finger’, that wrote the ten commandments, since A-Zab and Sebel both mean laborer in the sense of contortion as was the case with the classic Sibyls. But it is a long story.
Our Hebrew writings often show such examples. Thus, Noach or ‘Noah’ is said to have found cHen or '’grace’; but the two consonants which we make into Noach are N-ch, and when reversed we have cH-N, which in Egyptian is ‘prophet’, as Khn is prophet in Ethiopic; hence the Hebrew word Cohen or ‘priest’. So Jakob or A-Keh means in 'Hebrew a ‘wine-vat’, and when read backwards we have Bak-ai, which we have in Greek as Bacch-us; hence in the wrestling at Ja-Bock (Bak-ai) he acquires the name I-Sara-El, for he is coming toward Egypt where O-Sar-is first planted the vine; and so the first thing Jacob does when he has supplanted Esau is to build Succ-oth, and Succ-oth was ‘Tabernacles’ or the grape harvest; the Athenian O-Socha-phoria, when there were songs to Bacchus and Ari-Adan-e.
There is more important play on the name of Mosheh, our Grecized ‘Moses’. His name is composed of the three consonants M-Sh-H, which, when reversed, may be rendered in to ha-Sh-m or ‘the Shem’, which means ‘the Name’. On pain of death Jews were not to blaspheme ‘the Name’, but it seems that only Mosheh may be meant, for the ancients appear to have concealed their name of Deity from their own populace, and hence these could not blaspheme it by the use of the sacred name.”
(add discussion)
Education
Grethenbach lists himself has having MA and TOA degrees.
Keys
The following search keys: “chavah, eve, Egyptian, mythology” led to the discovery of Gretchenbach’s interesting book, following a reading of Genesis 3.5, ‘eritis sicut deus’, as found on Hugo Rheinhold’s 1893 Ape with Skull (Ѻ) statue, as employed as a phrase (Ѻ) in Goethe’s Faust, the statue kept on the desks of atheists Vladimir Lenin (Ѻ) and Louis Appignani (Ѻ), wherein Genesis 3:20 has the sentence: ‘Adam called his wife’s name ‘Eve’ because she was the mother of all living’, alternatively translated in Hebrew as Eve = ‘Chavah’, i.e. ‘living’, in KJV footnote. Grethenbach devotes considerable discussion to a person named cHavah (Ѻ) in his book, in an attempt to stitch the Hebrew translation back into their Egyptian mythology, Greek mythology, and Chaldaic literature roots (pg. v), admixture with talk about how stories such as how ‘Joshua made the sun stand still for a whole day’ or how Jesus ‘reanimated Lazarus after his body had putrefied’ are against science.
Quotes
The following are noted quotes:
“No one can deny the importance of Sippara, since it was in that twin town, divided as it was by the Pur-at, that the Chaldean Noach built his boat, buried his books, and set afloat, as the cuneiform inscriptions tell us; nay, more, we are told that its special deity was called Malik, and that its sacred name was Ma-Oru; though Greek writers called it "City of the Sun" [Heliopolis]; but it is nowhere else suspected of connection with this record unless it was used to make odious the name of Baal-Ak, son of Zippar, who sent Baal-Am to curse Isra-el, as well as the repudiated (Ex. 18:2) wife of Mosheh, and even the liar Sephira of Christian story (The Acts 5: 1.&c).”
— Constantine Grethenbach (1902), Secular View of the Bible (pg. 15-16)
“No animosity is shown toward Egypt in the Jewish Scriptures. On the contrary they are favored (Deut. 23: 3-4-, 7-8). The word Chem [keme], the name of the country, is, indeed, attacked in the incident of cHam the son of Noach, but that was evidently on account of the Canaanites, and belongs to the Ezraic policy of exclusiveness.”
— Constantine Grethenbach (1902), Secular View of the Bible (pg. 16)
See also
● Gary Greenberg
References
1. Grethenbach, Constantine. (1902). Secular View of the Bible (cHavah, pg. 43): From Studies of the Hebrew; with the Evidences as to Jesus. Peter Eckler.
2. Grethenbach, Constantine. (1903). “Hammurabi and Abraham” (pdf), Letter to the Editor, The Open Court 12(8):760, May 16.
Further reading
● Grethenbach, Constantine. (c.1900). Secret of Mankind. Publisher.