I was doing some research on the Knights Templar and their supposed connections with Satan, for a project that I am working on. I noticed that on a great many occasions they have been associated with Baphomet – supposedly a representation of Satan, and that the Inquisition (that happy group) tried them for heresy and broke up their order (stealing all their money in the process).
Supposedly this was due to their “worshiping” an image of a man with a beard, and that this was associated with the word Baphomet. Since this was done inside of either secret rituals or an initiation process, I don’t really see the harm done, but apparently the money was sufficient to cause the Kings of both France and England to encourage the Pope to disband the order, after burning their members at the stake.
I say supposedly representing Satan because nobody really knew what it meant. So they got their paid scholars to work. One from England posited that it was from an Egyptian hieroglyph meaning calf or bull. And the boys in France thought it was a reference to Muhammad, the Islamic leader. They forced some of the confessions to include a reference to Yallah, (should have been Allah), and there it sat for many centuries.
I had two thoughts when reading their findings. One, are these scientists or scholars? Because it seems like they went from the answer they wanted and filled in the rest, and Two, how dumb is that? Since the Templars were in Jerusalem, the Holy Lands, surrounded by Jewish Rabbis and scholars, one wonders why they did not ask someone that was familiar with those languages? That would have been my first move. Arabic and Canaanite would have followed and then Greek. But no, they stuck to Egyptian and Islamic, with no evidence.
Suppose that I were a member of the Templars, and devoted to God, and I wished to express the following idea, but I wanted to do so in the local language; so that I could share it with my neighbors and assure them of my harmless attitude and spiritual connection?
The House of the Lord is a Fountain of Wisdom;
the Words of Man can be either Good or Evil.
And the local Rabbi, who by that time knew his Hebrew very well (1000 AD), would have explained that:
B = Beyt or Bet = house or dwelling, creation, the world to come
A = Aleph = represents the Lord God
P or Ph = Pey = speech, word, expression, breath
M = Mem = deep waters, a fountain of wisdom
T = Tet = two possibilities for man – good or evil
So we have Bapmt or Baphomet. There were no vowels added to their writing, yet, but they were working on adding them at the time, so BAPMT is the closest one could come to Baphomet. Aleph was not considered a vowel but used as one. It was silent because it represented God, the unspoken One.
I have no evidence for this actually being the case, since I am not a Templar, nor do I have access to their secret writings (that’s why they are called secret), but it does have the weight of common sense driven by experience, along with an understanding of the locals and the way that that phrase was commonly expressed. So I stand behind it as it is.
Just trying to help out a group that I feel was maligned for no reason other than money.