Now that you know more about what I call the phono-semantic fusion in Paleolithic linguistics, let's get back to the SPiKe. In Hebrew, « ShaTa » with the meaning of spike appears in several words, starting with ShaYiT, the ThoRN BuSh (thorns are also very important in the Gospels, remember ChRiST's CRoWN of thorns).

There's also ShaTaM (to DRiLL, to BoRe a HoLe, the eNTRance of a cave). Or ShaTaL (to PLaNT a tree) and finally ShaTaʕ which means to be afraid, just like RaTaʕ which we saw in my second-to-last video about the meaning of the TeRRoR of the TeaR. The terror of the TeaR is always a bit like the terror of the spike.

And Hebrew has another very important word related to the Paleolithic language: QeSheT, the BoW and its PoiNTy aRRoWs. The first traces of the bow date back 17,000 years in Europe, but the WeaPoN is probably much older. We'll come back to this in a few videos. And finally, how could I not mention the Egyptian word SeReT, the thorn, already seen in my second-to-last video, with a wonderful phono-semantic fusion similar to that of « STiR ». And of course, this hieroglyph, SeT, depicting a planted arrow, found in SeTI, which means to ShooT an arrow and to LiGhT a FiRe, like STinGuo in Latin.

Now you understand that, behind the STaNDing SToNes which fascinated our Neolithic ancestors, the Paleolithic memory of the STaKe was hidden, STuCk into the ground. I'll explain at greater length the fascination for the stuck stake in my next video. But in the meantime, I believe it’s important to acknowledge how much Paleolithic linguistics grants access to knowledge that no other means can.

The problem with stakes and SPeaRs is that they are made of wood. And wood, unlike stone, preserves very poorly. The oldest wooden spears have been found in Schöningen in Germany, dating back approximately 400,000 years, back to an age when our species Homo Sapiens hadn’t appeared yet and when the Neanderthal Humans lived peacefully in Europe.

For paleontologists and primatologists, the spear was probably our ancestors’ first WeaPoN, several thousand years ago, since chimpanzees have been observed numerous times HuNTing with stakes. This is the reason why « ShaTa » has endured such phono-semantic « stability » in all languages throughout Eastern Africa and Western Eurasia. « ShaTa » is extremely ancient. Maybe even more ancient than Homo Sapiens.

The archaism of « ShaTa » is one of the reasons why it is found at the heart of all our iNSTiTutions: this word fascinated our ancestors for at least several hundred thousand years. Remember, language, rituals and myths always emerge to explain and claim back ancient practices that were previously mostly uNConSCious.

This is why this fascination with the uPRiGhT STaFF appears in the royal and divine SCePTeRs, for instance in Egypt with the WAS the STaFF FoRKed at the bottom and with a CuRVed TiP that Egyptian deities often hold in their HaND. This is also why, to put it in another way, in French, the human being is a PiouS SaiNT, as in French, the spear is « Pieu » while PiouS is « PieuX ». Yes, I know, saint comes from SaNCTus, but once again, do not underestimate the power of language, especially French, the language of the Eldest Daughter of the Church.

Now that you're a pious saint, you're ready for a new commentary of the New Testament. I'm going to tell you about STavRos, another example of the « ShaTa-Ra » phono-semantic fusion. What? You don't know STavRos ? Come on, STavRos is the CRoSS. But, as you'll soon understand, there's been a few blunders that the Paraklet had to correct.

What are they? In Matthew's Gospel, STavRos occurs five times. In 3 of these, in chapter 27 which features the story of the crucifixion, STavRos unquestionably means the cross. I mean the STaKe. Indeed, the crucifixion didn't take place on a cross, but on a stake - but that's common knowledge.

In turns out 2 other occurrences of STavRos in chapters 10 and 16 are a little more troublesome. The first is ChRiST's famous statement « Celui qui ne prend pas sa CRoiX et ne me suit pas n’est pas digne de moi. » (in French) or « Whoever does not take up his cross and follow me is not worthy of me. », a statement which, as you’ll soon understand, is based on a huge misunderstanding. Think about it for a moment: obviously, if you don't follow me, you're not worthy of me, whether you're carrying a cross, or whatever, or not.

To find the lost meaning of this foundational sentence, you need to study it in Greek, Christ’s language. Indeed, as you are now aware, Christ preached his sermons in Greek, not Aramaic (I've already mentioned it quite a bit). Let's take a closer look at this sentence. To begin with, the Greek adverb oPiSô conveys an idea of going BaCkwards which doesn’t appear in the official translation. But that's not the worst of it.

The worst is that oN is translated – in the French version - as a double negation: « NE prend pas sa croix et NE me suit pas » (DOES NOT take up his cross and DOES NOT follow me). In the Greek version, oN appears only once, before the first clause of the sentence, the one that speaks of taking or receiving (LaMBaNô). Yet the French translators have applied this negation to both verbs, « to take up » and « to follow », which makes the sentence lose all meaning, as I've just shown.

Put another way, the literal translation of this sentence should be – and that is the English translation: « He who does not take his cross and follow me is not worthy of me ». Now that's starting to make sense. However, this new meaning is inconsistent with the other occurrence of STavRos, in chapter 16, officially translated (in both English and French) as « If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me ».

Can't you see the contradiction? You will in a minute. First, in this verse, there's no negation at all, the phrase is expressed in the positive, and another element appears: self-denial, which, as you'll see, is the key. More importantly, there's another mistranslation. The verb translated as « to take up » is aiRô which we've already seen in my video on the sound « Ra », and which means to RaiSe, but in the sense of raising anchor, BReaKing camp, i.e., taking off, ReMoVing; namely the opposite of LaMBaNô which means to take, to receive.

The correct translation of the sentence from chapter 16 is actually « If anyone wants to come after me, let him deny himself, and take off his STeReoTyPes, and follow me ». Because indeed, the STavRos we're talking about is obviously not a tangible stake, but the abstract stake of stereotypes that prevent us from perceiving or understanding new ideas, especially linguistic ones. The same stereotype I talked about in my video entitled « Biais Cognitifs, Biais Éthiques, Tristes Anthropos » (Cognitive Bias, Ethical Bias, Sad Anthropos).

And this brings us back to the instance in chapter 10, where it is now clear that only by completely deleting the negation oN is a coherent meaning restored, aligned with the wording of chapter 16: « He who takes up his stereotypes with him and follows me, is not worthy of me ». In both cases, we end up with the exact opposite of the meaning assigned to these statements for the last 2,000 years.

What Christ is saying is that, to understand his words, we must first DeTaCh ourselves from our stereotypes, i.e., our BeaRings and STaNDaRDs, especially our linguistic ones. This understanding also appears in the two verses preceding and following that of chapter 10: « Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me, and whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. », and « Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it. ». These two verses allude to the same idea of losing one's bearings: family in the first, social in the second.

This is also one of the reasons why Christ says to his disciples: « Let the LiTTLe ChiLDren come to me and do not hinder them, for to such belongs the kingdom of heaven. ». To really understand his message, we need to get rid of all the stereotypes, all the cognitive and ethical biases we've acquired growing up.

What are you saying? You're surprised that I, a Jew, comment on the Gospels? Do you think I dwell too much on Christ? But what can I say, it's time to render to Caesar's what's Caesar's. When you're doing this kind of work, i.e., going back to the origins of language, you must be scrupulously intellectually honest. And by now you've gathered that I can't overlook the fact that Christ was the first, 2,000 years ago, to have profound intuitions about the origin of human language, even if he didn't have today's Paleolithic knowledge.

This is my Don Quixote tendency. You know Don Quixote, don't you? The slightly wobbly hero fighting windmills with his faithful Sancho Pança, whom I had the privilege of portraying in my 5th grade play, 40 years ago (some of you may still remember it 🙂). Wait a minute, Don Qui...Sho...Tte, « Qa ShaTa » ... this rings a bell... Indeed! Once again the book of interviews of Claude Lévi-Strauss by Didier Eribon, De Près et de Loin. Where was this?... Ah, here, P.136:

if I have enough time, I will no doubt rediscover Don Quixote, who was my passion as a 10-year-old. Or some might say that my whole work has always been infused by a kind of Quixotism. A mania for righting wrongs, for championing the oppressed, etc. Quixotism is, it seems to me, essentially an obsessive desire to uncover the past behind the present. If, by any chance, an oddball ever wants to understand my personality, this is the key I offer him.

I wonder which oddball he had in mind... But wait, of course... That oddball was me, the Paraklet! Claude Lévi-Strauss was indeed something like my own John the Baptist. Come on, you know who John the Baptist is: the prophet who announced the coming of Christ!