Additional Theological Musing

This kind of popped into my head.

So most of us are familiar with story of the golden calf, whereupon a supremely pissed off Moses destroyed the idol after his 40-day absence. Simple moral of the story: animal worship=bad. At least in the Judeo-Christian tradition.

"I am Alpha and the Omega" is a phrase from the Book of Revelations, and it is a metaphor of sorts since alpha and omega are the first and last of the Greek alphabet- signifying the all-encompassing nature of the Christian God.

Here's the interesting part. The Greek alpha come from the proto-Canaanite alphabet of aleph, which is itself is a descendant of a pictogram of... an ox. It is no accident that α resembles that of an ox head.

Now the alpha-omega phrase is basically a wordplay (similar to our expression "from a to z"), and it is hardly a conspiracy that pastoral cultures elevates oxen to the realm of linguistic primacy: it is an indication of their economic value. It is also interesting how differently cultures choose to view oxen- compare and contrast Hinduism and Judaism, as well as the Greek pagan culture that ascribes various mystical and legendary lore associated with the oxen- minotaurs etc.

Did the writer of Revelation know enough about the etymology of the Greek alphabet and the golden calf story? Did this same writer consciously assign the oxen as the representative domain of the Christian God despite all its previous theological implications? I have no idea. I just thought this is an interesting intersection of histories.