The Link Between the Human Voice and Gods


One of the things that has always interested me about the Bible is its reference to speech. It is clear, at least in the Old Testament, that speech is not just something we use to order pizza but is something that had mysterious and magical attributes. How our speech and hearing differs from animals is why the ancients must have thought it magical.

In the Bible is says first there was the word and the word was God. Everyone can guess what that means exactly but it seems like some magical word created God.

I have heard there are places in the Bible that tell readers what words to use in prayers. I was watching Pat Robertson's TV show a while back when his son, Gordon, instructed viewers as to exactly what words to use when praying. These magical words in English are all the more foolish when one recognizes the authors wrote in a different language. Further, translating the words used in another language back in ancient times into today's English is problematic.

Anthropologists have speculated that the ability to speak and the ability to understand speech was not present in early human-like beings. Thus, when that ability came along it was seen as supernatural. It may have been all the more amazing because animals were not speaking, except in the Bible where a snake did the talking.

The link between gods and speech then might be that speech was seen in ancient times as a super natural phenomenon. Since gods possessed super natural powers it would be logical they were linked closely with human speech.

https://www.realclearscience.com/articles/2019/02/26/why_speech_is_a_human_innovation_110901.html

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